The role of stably stratified fluid and anisotropy porous medium in modeling fluid flow through an asymmetrically heated/cooled vertical annulus

Abstract

In this article, the natural convection of stratified fluid driven by the asymmetric heating and cooling of the surfaces of the concentric cylinders filled with an anisotropic porous matrix is investigated. The stratified fluid is confined between the outer surface of the inner cylinder and the inner surface of the outer cylinder while the onset transient natural convection is induced by the asymmetric heat heating/cooling of the inner surface of the outer cylinder while the outer surface of the inner cylinder is maintained at a constant temperature T = 1 $T=1$. The present problem is governed by a pair of coupled second‐order partial differential equations. To obtain the expressions for the temperature and velocity fields, the coupled mathematical equations describing the problem are systematically uncoupled such that their original orders remain unaltered. The research established that if the temperature of the outer surface of the inner cylinder equals the temperature of the inner surface of the outer cylinder, a symmetric flow occurs where two maxima velocities are observed close to the surfaces Z = 1 $Z=1\phantom{\rule{}{0ex}}$ and λ $\lambda $ of the annulus, respectively. Furthermore, for some constraints on certain values of some physical quantities in the flow solutions, the present work excellently compares with the research conducted by Jha and Oni.