Numerical evaluation of thermal dispersion in porous media

Experiments have shown that pore-hydrodynamics in a porous medium influences the temperature field. A numerical method for directly simulating flow field and heat transfer in both fluid and solid phases is applied to account for the effects of pore-velocity nonuniformity on the temperature distribution. The method does not require any imposed thermal dispersion model; the dispersion effects are directly calculated at pore scale, by ignoring the interfacial conduction between fluid and solid phases. The numerically obtained thermal dispersion conductivity tensor, which represents the heat transfer caused by hydrodynamic mixing of the interstitial fluid, is examined for various Reynolds numbers and Peclet numbers.