SFB 1313 Publication "A (Dual) Network Model for Heat Transfer in Porous Media"

New SFB 1313 publication, published in Transport in Porous Media. The paper has been prepared within SFB 1313's research project A02 and is a cooperation work between the University of Oslo and the University of Stuttgart:

"A (Dual) Network Model for Heat Transfer in Porous Media"

Authors

• Timo Koch (University of Oslo, SFB 1313 Task Force: "Software and Data")
• Kilian Weishaupt (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project A02)
• Johannes Müller (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research projects A02 )
• Bernhard Weigand (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research projects A02)
• Rainer Helmig (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research projects A02 and C02)

Abstract

We present a dual network model to simulate coupled single-phase flow and energy transport in porous media including conditions under which local thermal equilibrium cannot be assumed. The models target applications such as the simulation of catalytic reactors, micro-fluidic experiments, or micro-cooling devices. The new technique is based on a recently developed algorithm that extracts both the pore space and the solid grain matrix of a porous medium from CT images into an interconnected network representation. We simulate coupled heat and mass transfer in these networks simultaneously, allowing naturally to model scenarios with heterogeneous temperature distributions in both void space and solid matrix. The model is compared with 3D conjugate heat transfer simulations for both conduction- and convection-dominated scenarios. It is shown to reproduce effective thermal conductivities over a wide range of fluid to solid thermal conductivity ratios with a single parameter set. Morevoer, it captures local thermal nonequilibrium effects in a micro-cooling device scenario.