Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Convectioneradiation heat transfer in solar heat exchangers lled

with a porous medium: Homotopy perturbation method
versus numerical analysis
Maziar Dehghan a, *, Yousef Rahmani b, c, Davood Domiri Ganji b, Seyfollah Saedodin a,
Mohammad Sadegh Valipour a, Saman Rashidi a
a
b
c

Mech. Eng. Dep., Semnan University, 35196-45399 Semnan, Iran

Mech. Eng. Dep., Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, 4714871167 Babol, Iran
Iranian Central Oil Field Company, NIOC, 1585653745 Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 28 May 2014
Accepted 16 August 2014
Available online 7 September 2014

The case of combined conductioneconvectioneradiation heat transfer usually occurred in solar thermal
usages is the aim of the present study. This type of combined heat transfer in heat exchangers lled with
a uid saturated cellular porous medium is investigated. The ow is modeled by the DarcyeBrinkman
equation. The steady state model of this combined heat transfer is solved semi-analytically based on the
homotopy perturbation method (HPM) and numerically based on the nite difference method. No
analytical solution has been previously proposed for the problem. Effects of porous medium shape
parameter (s) and radiation parameters (Tr and l) on the thermal performance are analyzed. Furthermore, a discussion on the accuracy and limitations of the HPM in this kind of problems is represented.
This study shows that semi-analytical methods (like HPM, VIM, DTM, and HAM) can be used in simulation and prediction of thermal performance of solar energy harvesting systems.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Radiationeconvection
Heat exchanger
Solar thermal usage
Cellular porous medium
Homotopy perturbation method

1. Introduction
The concept of porous media plays a vital role in many engineering problems such as petroleum engineering (oil and gas ow
in reservoirs), material science, ltration, acoustics, geomechanics,
soil mechanics, rock mechanics, drying, and storage of absorbed
solar energy. Today, porous media are used in solar collectors to
increase the overall efciency, in the solar room of green houses to
heat the inside air, and as packed beds to store the solar heat for
nights. Despite all advances and experimental, theoretical, and
computational efforts in this area, scientists are still far from quite
understanding all phenomena taking place in the porous medium
because of some restrictions such as nonlinear nature of governing
equations. Many studies have been conducted by researchers on
investigation of forced convection in a channel lled with a saturated porous medium. Vafai and Kim [1] considered a fully

* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: 98 231 3354122.

E-mail
addresses:
dehghan.maziar@gmail.com,
m-dehghan@aut.ac.ir
(M. Dehghan), u3f.r.mech@gmail.com (Y. Rahmani), ddg_davood@yahoo.com
(D. Domiri Ganji), s_sadodin@iust.ac.ir (S. Saedodin), msvalipour@semnan.ac.ir
(M.S. Valipour), samanrashidi3983@gmail.com (S. Rashidi).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2014.08.044
0960-1481/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

developed forced convection in a porous channel bounded by

parallel plates and obtained exact solution for both velocity and
temperature elds. In their study, the properties of the porous
medium and uid were assumed to be isotropic and homogenous.
Nakayama and Shenoy [2] investigated non-Darcy forced convective heat transfer in a channel conned by two parallel walls subjected to uniform heat ux in a highly porous medium saturated
with a non-Newtonian power-law uid. They carried out a numerical integration utilizing the BrinkmaneForchheimer extension
of the Darcy model to study the effects of pseudoplasticity, Brinkman, and Forchheimer terms on the heat transfer characteristics.
Nield and Kuznetsov [3] presented an analytical method in order to
study forced convection in a plane channel occupied by a saturated
bi-disperse porous medium, coupled with conduction in plane
slabs bounding the channel. They considered effects of thermal

clet and Nusselt numbers. They also resulted
parameter such as Pe
that the effect of the nite thermal resistance due to the slabs is to
reduce both the heat transfer to the porous medium and the degree
of local thermal non-equilibrium. Alazmi and Vafai [4] conducted a
numerical study on forced convection in a composite channel between parallel plates with different boundary conditions at the
interface. They found effects of different boundary conditions on

M. Dehghan et al. / Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

Nomenclature
A
B
cp
Da
ddy
f
G
H
L
K
k
kc
kf
kr
ks
M
N
n
Nu
p
00
qw
r
s
T
Tm
Tr

a differential operator
a boundary operator
specic heat at constant pressure (J kg1 K1)
Darcy number, K/H2
grid-size expansion factor
a known function
negative of the applied pressure gradient in ow
direction (Pa m1)
half of the channel gap (m)
linear part
permeability of the medium (m2)
effective thermal conductivity of the medium
(W m1 K1)
molecular thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
thermal conductivity of uid phase (W m1 K1)
radiative thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
thermal conductivity of solid phase (W m1 K1)
viscosity ratio
non-linear part
number of iterations
Nusselt number
HPM parameter
heat ux at the wall (W m2)
variable of the domain U
porous media shape parameter
temperature (K)
bulk mean temperature (K)
temperature variation parameter (Eq. (20))

the Nusselt, Reynolds, and Darcy numbers. Effects of viscous

dissipation and boundary conditions on forced convection in a
channel occupied by a saturated porous medium were studied by
Hooman and Gurgenci [5]. Ozgen et al. [6] experimentally investigated a device for inserting an absorbing plate made of aluminum
cans into the double-pass channel in a at-plate solar air heater
(SAH). They showed that their method substantially improved the
collector efciency by increasing the uid velocity and enhancing
the heat-transfer coefcient between the absorber plate and air.
Also, Esen et al. [7,8] analyzed the thermal behavior of solar air
heater (SAH) using least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM),
articial neural network (ANN) and wavelet neural network (WNN)
methods [9,10]. Boutin and Gosselin [11] numerically studied a
vertical open-ended channel lled with a porous medium, with an
imposed heat ux and a heat loss coefcient on one of its walls.
They developed correlations for optimal pressure drop to be
imposed by the fan and maximal energy recovery, as a function of
the Rayleigh number, the channel aspect ratio, and the heat loss
coefcient to be used in solar wall and solar chimney applied for
ventilation and preheating of makeup air in buildings.
Nield and Kuznetsov [12] investigated a combined conductiveeconvectiveeradiative process in a channel occupied by a
saturated cellular porous medium. Nield and Kuznetsov [12] showed
that the Nusselt number increases at the case of variable conductivity
arising from the radiative heat transfer. Dehghan et al. [13] investigated the ow and heat transfer in a uid saturated porous medium
bounded by iso-thermal parallel plates based on the perturbation and
successive approximation methods analytically. They proposed a new
dimensionless group representing the intensity of the local thermal
non-equilibrium (LTNE) condition. Dehghan et al. [14] recently
analyzed the performance of a tube heat exchanger lled with porous

Tw
u
u*
u
u*m
v
x*, y*
y
_

449

wall temperature (K)

dimensionless velocity; an arbitrary function in HPM
introduction
velocity (m s1)
normalized velocity
mean velocity (m s1)
solution of Eq. (27)
dimensional coordinates (m)
dimensionless coordinate

Greek letters
bR
Rosseland mean extinction coefcient (m1)
G
boundary of the domain
q
dimensionless temperature
l
radiation parameter (Eq. (20))
m
uid viscosity (kg m1 s1)
meff
effective viscosity in the Brinkman term (kg m1 s1)
n
an arbitrary dependent parameter used in Eq. (38)
s
StefaneBoltzmann coefcient (W m2 K4)
r
uid density (kg m3)
f
porosity of the medium
U
domain of problem
Subscripts
i
index
f
uid phase
m
mean
s
solid phase
w
wall

media based on numerical and analytical approaches at both isothermal and iso-ux thermal boundary conditions. They presented
analytical expressions for the normalized velocity and the dimensionless temperature of the medium. Mahmoudi [15] numerically
investigated the effects of thermal radiation from the solid phase on
the temperature differential and the rate of heat transfer in a pipe
partially lled with a porous material using discrete ordinate method
(DOM) to compute the radiative heat ux. Zamzamian et al. [16]
performed an experimental study to investigate the effect of Cu
nanoparticle on the efciency of a at-plate solar collector. They
found that by increasing the nanoparticle weight fraction, the efciency of the collector was improved.
Despite the fact that many of thermal and uid phenomena are
expressed by nonlinear equations, only a few methods are able to
solve them. In recent years, semi-analytical techniques are widely
used for solving nonlinear equations because of their simple algorithms and capabilities in the solution. Ganji and Sadighi [17] used
two semi-analytical techniques (variational iteration method and
homotopy-perturbation method) in order to solve nonlinear heat
transfer equations in porous media. They presented some comparisons between these methods and investigated the abilities and
disabilities of these techniques for solving heat transfer nonlinear
equations. Homotopy perturbation method (HPM) is one of the
most well-known semi-analytical methods for solving nonlinear
equations arising in engineering, especially in porous medium
analyses. The HPM is introduced by Ji-Huan He of Shanghai University in 1998 [18]. The semi-analytical methods, especially the
homotopy perturbation method, are applied in porous medium
problems by many researchers [19e21].
In the present study, ow and heat transfer in a uid saturated
cellular porous medium bounded by two innite parallel-plates at

450

M. Dehghan et al. / Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

iso-ux thermal boundary condition are investigated semianalytically based on homotopy perturbation method (HPM) and
numerically based on the nite difference (FD) scheme. The ow
eld is modeled using the DarcyeBrinkman equation. The thermal
conductivity of the medium is assumed to be temperaturedependent due to the radiative heat transfer. In other words, a
constant molecular thermal conductivity (kc) together with a
temperature-dependent radiative conductivity (kr) has been
assumed. The heat ux boundary condition and radiation heat
transfer due to solar energy applications using porous media have
great practical interests in modern engineering [22e27].
As it was mentioned by Nield and Kuznetsov [28] only for a few
situations an analytical solution can be obtained which were done
by Nield and Kuznetsov [12] and Kuznetsov and Nield [29] for
asymptotic situations. They expressed the Nusselt number in
limiting cases of the clear uid (s/0) and Darcy ows (s/). The
investigation on the Nusselt number based on a temperaturedependent conductivity for the extended model of DarcyeBrinkman has not been previously done based on a pure analytical or
semi-analytical approach. Effects of the porous media shape
parameter and temperature-dependent conductivity on the Nusselt
number and temperature eld are investigated and the limitations
of the HPM in the present problem are introduced.

2. Mathematical modeling
The schematic diagram of the problem is shown in Fig. 1. The
following assumptions are invoked in the formulation of the
model:
 The ow in the porous medium is incompressible.
 The steady-state fully developed forced convection is desired.
 The porosity of the medium is considered to be uniform and
constant.
 A constant heat ux is imposed at the walls and it is uniform
along the channel.
 Walls are impermeable parallel-plates with innite dimension
perpendicular to the plane of view.
 The radiative heat transfer inside the cellular porous medium is
modeled by a diffusion process [12,30e32].
 The temperatures of the solid and uid phases are equivalent
(LTE condition).
According to the stated assumptions, the momentum equation
can be presented as following [33]:

meff

d2 u*
dy*2

m
u* G 0
K

Eq. (1) is the momentum equation (the DarcyeBrinkman equation)

where y* is the perpendicular axis to the ow direction, u is the
velocity of uid, m is the uid viscosity, K is the permeability of the
medium, r is the uid density, G is the negative of the applied
pressure gradient in the ow direction (x*), and meff is the effective
viscosity.
The steady state energy equation of the medium is [33]:


vT
v
vT

k
rcp u*
vx* vy*
vy*

(2)

In Eq. (2), it is assumed that the axial heat conduction and viscous
dissipation are negligible. T is temperature, cp is the specic heat of
the uid phase, k is effective thermal conductivities of the medium
given by:

k fkf 1  fks

(3)

where 4 is the porosity of the medium. Eqs. (1) and (2) are subjected to the no-slip, no-jump, and symmetry conditions:


du 
0;
dy*y*0

uy* H 0

vT
0
vy*

at

y* 0

T Tw

at

y* H

(4)

(5)

The radiative heat transfer could be treated as a diffusion process by introducing the radiative conductivity in cellular porous
materials and metallic foams [12,30,31]:
00

qw kc kr

vT
vT
k
vy
vy

(6)

where kc, kr, and k are conductive (molecular), radiative, and the
effective conductivities, respectively. kr is approximated by Ref.
[12]:

kr

16sT 3
3bR

(7)

here bR is the Rosseland mean extinction coefcient and s is the

StefaneBoltzmann constant [34,35]. The effective conductivity is:

k kc

16sT 3
3bR

(8)

(1)
3. Analysis of the problem
Dimensionless form of the momentum Eq. (1) and the boundary
conditions (4) are:

d2 u
1
 s2 u 0
M
dy2

du
0;
dyy0

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the saturated porous channel.

uy 1 0

(9)

(10)

where y is the dimensionless axis perpendicular to the ow direction, u is the dimensionless velocity, M is the viscosity ratio, s is
the porous medium shape parameter, and Da is the Darcy number
[13,14]:

M. Dehghan et al. / Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

y*
mu*
m
K
; u
; M eff ; Da 2
H
m
GH 2
H

1
s p
DaM

r
f
Da

(11)

(12)

The solution of the momentum Eq. (9) is:




coshsy
u Da 1 
coshs

Tm


u*
s
coshsy
1


um s  tanhs
coshs

(24)

Eq. (21) shows that the equation has non-linearity of the third order
which is categorized as a high non-linear problem. After nding the
dimensionless temperature (q), the compatibility condition
Z 1
b qdy 1 is used to nd the Nusselt number.

u
0

T  Tw
Tm  Tw
1

Hum

(13)

To solve the energy Eq. (2), it should be non-dimensionalized

using the following denitions:

451

(14)

4. Homotopy perturbation method

In order to describe the HPM, let us consider the following
equation:

Au  f r 0

ZH
u*Tdy*

r2U

with




vu
0
bc : B u;
vn

r2G

(25)

(15)

where q and Tm are the dimensionless temperature and the bulk

mean temperature, respectively. Writing the rst law of thermodynamics over a differential control volume containing the channel
obtains [13]:

where A is a general differential operator, B is a boundary operator, f

(r) is a known analytical function, and G is the boundary of the
domain U. A can be divided into two parts; linear (L) and nonlinear
(N) parts. Eq. (25) can therefore be dened as follows:

Lu Nu  f r 0

r2U

(26)

00

vT
qw

vx* rcp u*m H

(16)

Hv; p 1  pLv  Lu0  pAv  f r

u*m is the mean velocity given by:

u*m

1
H

Homotopy perturbation form is presented as follows:

where vr; p : U  01/R

(27)

ZH
u*dy*

(17)

To write the effective conductivity (Eq. (8)) in dimensionless

form, one can do as following [12]:

In Eq. (27), p2[0, 1] is an embedding parameter and u0 is the rst

approximation that satises the boundary condition. It can be
assumed that the solution of Eq. (26) can be written as a power
series in p, as following:

3
2
T 3 Tw
3Tw
T  Tw 3Tw T  Tw 2 T  Tw 3

(18)

v v0 v1 p v2 p2

h

 i


k k0 1 3lTr q 3lTr2 q2 lTr3 q3

(19)

v is the solution of Eq. (27) and depends on the powers of p. The

best approximation for the nal solution can be achieved when:

l
1

.
3bR kc 16sT 3
w

u lim v0 v1 p v2 p2

3
T  Tw
16sTw
!; Tr m
; k0 kc
Tw
3bR

p/1

(29)

In this study, the energy equation is rewritten as:

(20)
Nield and Kuznetsov [12] referred to Tr as the temperature
variation parameter. Combining Eqs. (2), (5), (14), (16), (19) and (20)
results in:



 i dq


Nu _
d h
u
1 3lTr q 3lTr2 q2 lTr3 q3

4
dy
dy

(21)


dq
0;
dyy0

(22)

q1 0

(28)

d2 q
d2 q
d2 q
d2 q
3lTr 2 $qy 3lTr2 2 $q2 y lTr3 2 $q3 y
2
dy
dy
dy
dy

2

2

2
dq
dq
dq
6lTr2
$qy 3lTr3
$qy2
3lTr
dy
dy
dy



Nu
s
coshsy
1
0

4 s  tanhs
coshs
(30)

Nu is the Nusselt number based on the hydraulic diameter of the

_
channel and u is the normalized velocity [13]:

According to Eq. (28), the solution to the temperature can be

assumed as following:

qy

5
X

pi qi y

(31)

i0

00

Nu

qw 4H
k0 Tw  Tm

(23)

According to the HPM method, Eq. (21) can be written according

to the Eq. (27):

452

M. Dehghan et al. / Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

Hq;p 1  p


d2 q Nu
s
coshsy
1


coshs
dy2 4 s  tanhs

2
d2 q
d2 q
2 d q 2

3lT

$qy

3lT

$q y
r
r
dy2
dy2
dy2

2

2
d2 q
dq
dq
6lTr2
$qy
lTr3 2 $q3 y 3lTr
dy
dy
dy


!

2
dq
Nu
s
coshsy
1
3lTr3
$qy2
dy
4 s  tanhs
coshs

(32)
By substituting Eq. (31) into Eq. (32) and collecting all the coefcients with the same rational power of p, one can write:





d2 q Nu
s
coshsy
d2 q1
dq0
1
p

3lTr3
2
2
4 s  tanhs
coshs
dy
dy
dy
!
!
!
2
d q0
p2 3lTr
q1 y 0
dy2
(33)
i

The coefcients of p in Eq. (33) must be zero in order to nd the

dimensionless temperature functions (qi(y)). It should be noted that
the boundary conditions for the coefcients of pi are:


dqi 
0;
dy y0

qi 1 0

(34)

Maple software has been applied to do the above procedure. But,

equations of each power of p with the given boundary conditions
have only the trivial solution given by Maple. Consequently in order
to nd a closed form solution satisfying the boundary conditions,
two integrals are implemented respectively:

d
dq
n
dy
dy

dqi

dy

5. Numerical simulation
An explicit nite difference scheme with the second order of
precision written in Matlab software based on a non-uniform
structured grid has been used to solve the dimensionless equations [14,36e39]. According to Fig. 2, the rst and second orders of
differentiation have been discretized as following [36,38]:

dq
dy


i




qi1 ddy2  1 qi  ddy  qi1

O Dy2i ;
ddy 1Dyi

(37)

ni ni1
2



Eqi dy
Z

qyi 

(homotopy perturbation method) has been used in the present

study to solve the problem. Other semi-analytical methods like
ADM (Adomian decomposition method), HAM (homotopy analysis method), VIM (variational iteration method), and DTM (differential transformation method) can be used to solve the similar
problems.








qi1  qi
n ni1
qi  qi1
i


Dyi
2
Dyi1
O Dy2i

0:5Dyi Dyi1






q
 qi
q  qi1
ni ni1 i1
ni ni1 i


Dyi
Dyi1
O Dy2i :

Dyi Dyi1

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the computational domain.

y0

Eqi dy

 
Z


dqi
dqi
dy
dy

dy
dy
y1

(35)

(38)

ddy is the expansion factor of the grid step-size, n is an arbitrary

dependent parameter and Dyi is the step-size of the ith node:

Dyi yi1  yi ;
(36)

where Eqi is the equation corresponding to the ith power of p.

This algorithm has been applied for all powers of p (p0 to p5) by a
code written in Maple software. Each step, solving equations of
each power of p, only needs results of the previous steps. This
semi-analytical solution requires a high amount of PC RAM and
the virtual memory of Maple. Higher powers of p (higher than 3)
reach the maximum memory capacity of a typical PC with 6 GB
RAM. Consequently, higher orders require modications and
breaking up each step to two or more steps to avoid the out of
memory error. Finally, it should be noted that the HPM

ddy

Dyi
:
Dyi1

(39)
(40)

To achieve higher accuracy and stability in the numerical

simulation, the under-relaxation technique has been adopted [14].
For stable cases (i.e. small values of l), an over-relaxation has been
applied to decrease the time of convergence. The non-linear terms
have been linearized similar to the following trick [14]:

n 2
qn1
qni ;
qi
i

(41)

where i shows steps in y-direction and n shows the number of iterations. The error limit below than 107 for the maximum

M. Dehghan et al. / Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

s=1, Num.
s=1, HPM
s=1, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)
s=10, Num.
s=10, HPM
s=10, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)
s=100, Num.
s=100, HPM
s=1000, Num.
s=inf, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)

30
25

Nu

20

25

20

Tr=-0.2, Num.
Tr=-0.2, HPM
Tr=-0.2, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)
Tr=0.8, Num.
Tr=0.8, HPM
Tr=0.8, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)

15
Nu

35

453

15

10

10
5

5
0
0.01

0
-0.5

-0.25

0.25
Tr

0.5

0.75

difference between the two successive iterations has been adopted

for the convergence criterion. The half of the channel has been
assumed as the numerical simulation domain with 201 grid-points
and a grid step-size expansion (ddy) factor of 0.99. The maximum
difference between the results of 401 grid-points and results of the
selected number of grid points (201 grid-points) was below than
104.

6. Results and discussion

Figs. 3 and 4 show the Nu number of the numerical simulation
and HPM in comparison with the results of Nield and Kuznetsov [6].
The Nu number increases with increasing Tr and l, up to ten times
because of the radiation conductivity (arising from the radiation
heat transfer). It is expected because increasing Tr or l represents
higher values of the radiative heat transfer. In other words, the
Nusselt number increases when the conductivity of the medium
increases [40]. Another matter obtained from Figs. 3 and 4 is
decreasing accuracy of the HPM with an increase in the absolute
value of Tr. The same trend could be seen for increasing l. An increase in Tr (or l) results in higher radiative heat transfer and higher
s=1, Num.
s=1, HPM
s=1, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)
s=10, Num.
s=10, HPM
s=10, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)
s=100, Num.
s=100, HPM
s=1000, Num.
s=inf, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)

45
40

Nu

35
30
25

10

100

1000

non-linearity. As non-linearity of the equation increases, higher

powers of p should be considered in HPM to achieve a higher accuracy. Since only few terms (few powers of p) could be considered
in practice, the accuracy of HPM decreases by increasing the nonlinearity of the equation. Consequently, the Nusselt number of
HPM deviates less than the numerical simulation about the linear
value of the Nusselt number when Tr (or l) 0. The linear solution
to the energy equation only considers the constant value (k0) for
conductivity of medium. So, the Nusselt number of HPM has lower
and higher values than the Nusselt number of numerical simulation
when Tr > 0 and Tr < 0, respectively.
Figs. 5 and 6 are plotted in order to explain the effects of porous
medium shape parameter (s) on the Nusselt number. As it is expected, two limiting Nusselt number exist for each case; when s/0
and s/. Also, the Nusselt number increases smoothly with
increasing porous medium shape parameter (s) [13,14]. Similar to
the discussion given in the previous paragraph, the dimensionless
difference between the Nu number of the numerical simulation and
HPM increases with increasing l and Tr.
Plots of dimensionless temperature are depicted in Figs. 7 and 8.
Similar to Figs. 3e6, the difference between the HPM and numerical

40
35
30

Tr=-0.2, Num.
Tr=-0.2, HPM
Tr=-0.2, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)
Tr=0.8, Num.
Tr=0.8, HPM
Tr=0.8, Nield and Kuznetsov (2010)

25
Nu

50

Fig. 5. Nu number of the numerical simulation and HPM versus s (Tr 0.2 and 0.8;
l 0.5).

Fig. 3. Nu number of the numerical simulation and HPM versus Tr (l 0.5).

55

0.1

20
15

20
15

10

10

5
0
-0.5

-0.25

0.25
Tr

0.5

0.75

Fig. 4. Nu number of the numerical simulation and HPM versus Tr (l 1).

0
0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

s
Fig. 6. Nu number of the numerical simulation and HPM versus s (Tr 0.2 and 0.8;
l 1).

454

M. Dehghan et al. / Renewable Energy 74 (2015) 448e455

presented investigation for the rst time. Other highlights of this

study could be stated as following:

1.75
1.5
1.25

1
0.75

s=1, Num.
s=1,HPM
s=10, Num.
s=10, HPM
s=100, Num.
s=100, HPM

0.5
0.25
0
0

0.25

0.5
y

0.75

Fig. 7. Dimensionless temperature versus y (Tr 0.4; l 0.5).

2
1.75

References

1.5
1.25

 The Nusselt number increases with increasing Tr and l. In other

words by incorporating the radiation conductivity denition,
the overall heat transfer enhances.
 The Nusselt number increases with the porous medium shape
parameter (s). It means that if the ow be more uniform over the
cross-sectional area, the heat transfer will be improved.
 The HPM solution at the case of moderate radiation heat transfer
is in well agreement with the numerical simulation results and
outcomes have been revealed that HPM is applicable in this
case-study.
 Accuracy of the HPM decreases by increasing the radiation parameters (Tr and l). In other words when the non-linearity of the
problem increases, more terms (more powers of p) should be
considered to keep the accuracy.
 Finally, the present study has shown the applicability of semianalytical methods (HPM, HAM, VIM, DTM, ) in estimation
of the heat transfer rate and the prediction of the thermal performance of complicated solar energy harvesting systems.

1
s=1, =0, Exact

0.75

s=1, Num.
s=1,HPM

0.5

s=100, =0, Exact

0.25

s=100, Num.
s=100, HPM

0
0

0.25

0.5
y

0.75

Fig. 8. Dimensionless temperature versus y (Tr 0.4; l 0.9).

simulation is negligible when the radiation effect has less importance (l 0.5). In other words, the non-linearity of the energy
equation is lower when l 0.5 in comparison with a higher value of
l 1. To give more sense, the exact solution to the linear energy
equation (when l 0) is plotted beside the non-linear cases in
Fig. 8. It could be seen that the dimensionless temperature proles
of HPM are somewhere between the results of numerical simulation and the linear case. It should be noted that when l tends to
unity, higher powers of p (higher than 3) have not physical solution.
So, the solution accuracy of the HPM decreases when l tends to
unity.
7. Conclusion
Effects of the radiation heat transfer in forced convection heat
transfer through cellular porous media bounded by two innite
parallel plates have been analyzed. A constant heat ux has been
imposed at the plates. The DarcyeBrinkman equation has been
used to model the ow through the porous medium. The radiative
heat transfer has been modeled similar to a diffusion process by
introducing the radiation conductivity. The combined conductioneconvectioneradiation energy equation has been solved by
the homotopy perturbation and nite difference methods. This
problem has been solved by a semi-analytical approach in the

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