Effects of flexible fin on natural convection in enclosure partially-filled with porous medium☆

Abstract A numerical study is conducted to analyze the effects of a flexible fin on unsteady convective flow in a square enclosure composed of a vertical fluid layer and a porous layer. The fin is attached to the heated left wall of the enclosure. The Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy flow model is assumed in the porous layer. The governing equations are written in the Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulation in the fluid and structure domains and then solved using the FEM. The result shows that the fin oscillation impacts the area below the fin rather than the area above the fin or the area in the center. The overall rate of heat transfer is improved as the Darcy number, the fluid layer thickness, and the fin elasticity increase. The overall rate of heat transfer increases exponentially with the rise of the oscillation amplitude. An oscillation amplitude of 0.1 could result in 3.4 percent improvement in the heat transfer rate.