Thermal analysis of a fully wet porous radial fin with natural convection and radiation using the spectral collocation method

Heat transfer with natural convection and radiation effect on a fully wet porous radial fin is considered. The radial velocity of the buoyancy driven flow at any radial location is obtained by applying Darcy’s law. The obtained non-dimensionalized ordinary differential equation involving three highly nonlinear terms is solved numerically with the spectral collocation method. In this approach, the dimensionless temperature is approximated by Chebyshev polynomials and discretized by Chebyshev-Gausse-Lobatto collocation points. A particular algorithm is used to reduce the nonlinearity of the conservation of energy equation. The present analysis characterizes the effect of ambient temperature in different ways and it provides a better picture regarding the effect of ambient temperature on the thermal performance of the fin. The profiles for temperature distributions and dimensionless base heat flow are obtained for different parameters which influence the heat transfer rate.