LAUSR

Abstract In this work, the natural convective transport was numerically investigated for nanofluids in a metal-foam cavity. A lattice Boltzmann (LB) model for the nanofluid natural convection in a porous medium was established by using the volume-averaging method. The velocity and temperature fields were obtained, and flow and thermal characteristics of the nanofluid convection in a porous medium were presented. The effects of the Rayleigh Number, the Darcy Number, the porosity, the solid thermal conductivity of porous medium, the nanoparticle thermal conductivity and the nanoparticle concentration on natural convection were examined. The average velocity was put forward to evaluate the convection effect and the natural convection onset was also discussed. It is shown that the Nusselt number of the natural convection increases with an increase in the Darcy number, the Rayleigh number, the porosity and the effective thermal conductivity. The change from the heat conduction regime to the convection regime is clearly shown from the numerical result, which verifies the onset point of the nanofluid natural convection in a porous medium. The highly conductive porous foam and the nanofluid can promote the thermal performance of the natural convection, which own great potential in practical thermal applications.