Effects of horizontal partitions on natural convection within a vertical porous wall

The study examines natural convection within a vertical porous slab that contains a series of horizontal partitions. These partitions are treated as impermeable and of negligible thickness, and they are evenly spaced so that the overall structure exhibits vertical periodicity. The slab is enclosed laterally by impermeable walls maintained at different constant temperatures. Under these conditions, the steady heat transfer within the porous medium is investigated by numerically solving the governing balance equations, formulated using Darcy’s law and the Boussinesq approximation. The numerical analysis focuses on a single periodic cell, de􀏐ined as the region between two adjacent horizontal partitions. The asymptotic stationary regime of natural convection is investigated for different Rayleigh numbers and values of the average Nusselt number for each boundary are determined.