Natural Convection in Porous Media with Heat Generation

The heat transfer characteristics of a fluid-saturated porous media are investigated for the case of uniform internal heat generation with cooling from above. Analytical models of conduction and single-phase cellular convection show good agreement with previous Rayleigh number correlations and with experimental data obtained by Joule heating of saltwater in a sand bed. An approximate dryout criterion is also derived for two-phase boiling heat transfer in a fixed bed which is neither channeled nor fluidized. Correlation of dryout data using this criterion is encouraging, especially considering the analytical rather than correlational basis of the criterion.