The 3D flow-fields in a staggered and cubic arrangement of mono-radii cylinders are investigated using tomographic-PIV. The cylinder Reynolds-number is in the range of $$\approx 10$$ ≈ 10 to $$\approx 800$$ ≈ 800 giving an almost complete overview of the transition region. Two pore-scale effects are discovered. The first, visible in the cubic packing, is a spatially alternating lateral velocity field, which has a significant impact on the pressure drop and transversal dispersion. The second effect, present in the staggered array, is an example of a disturbance propagation effect that takes place in the laminar steady region; this manifests as a peculiar and complex flow-pattern. In accordance with other studies, it is shown that Darcy’s law can, from an engineering point of view be valid far beyond the limit for Stokesian flow. Graphic abstract

The effects of periodicity assumptions on the macroscopic properties of packed porous beds are evaluated using a cascaded Lattice-Boltzmann method model. The porous bed is modelled as cubic and staggered packings of mono-radii circular obstructions where the bed porosity is varied by altering the circle radii. The results for the macroscopic properties are validated using previously published results. For unsteady flows, it is found that one unit cell is not enough to represent all structures of the fluid flow which substantially impacts the permeability and dispersive properties of the porous bed. In the steady region, a single unit cell is shown to accurately represent the fluid flow across all cases studied

Previously performed experiments on flow through an ordered porous media cell with tomographic particle image velocimetry reveal a complex three-dimensional steady-state flow pattern. This flow pattern emerge in the region where inertial structures have been previously reported for a wide range of packings. The onset of these steady-state inertial flow structures is here scrutinized for three different types of packing using a finite difference method. It is concluded that the onset of the flow structure coincides with a symmetry break in the flow field and discontinuities in the pressure drop, volume averaged body forces and heat transfer. A quantity for identifying the transition is proposed, namely the pressure integral across the solid surfaces. It is also shown that the transition can both increase and decrease the heat transfer dependent on the actual geometry of the porous medium.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a fast and bare bones implementation of a numerical method for quickly simulating turbulent thermal flows on GPUs. The work also validates earlier research showing that the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) method is suitable for complex thermal flows. Design/methodology/approach A dual lattice hydrodynamic (D3Q27) thermal (D3Q7) multiple-relaxation time LBM model capable of thermal DNS calculations is implemented in CUDA. Findings The model has the same computational performance compared to earlier publications of similar LBM solvers. The solver is validated against three benchmark cases for turbulent thermal flow with available data and is shown to be in excellent agreement. Originality/value The combination of a D3Q27 and D3Q7 stencil for a multiple relaxation time -LBM has, to the authors’ knowledge, not been used for simulations of thermal flows. The code is made available in a public repository under a free license.