HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER ON A COUETTE FLOW THROUGH POROUS MEDIUM WITH FINE DUST

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of fine dust particles on heat and mass transfer of a Couette flow between two porous plates, employing the perturbation technique. The flow is generated between two infinite parallel plates, with the upper plate moving at a uniform velocity while the lower plate remains stationary. The presence of dust particles modifies the fluid’s momentum, energy, and concentration profiles. The governing partial differential equations, which describe the conservation of mass, momentum, energy, and concentration, are formulated for a two-phase flow model—comprising a viscous fluid phase and a uniformly distributed dust phase. The perturbation method is applied to linearize the nonlinear coupled equations under small parameter assumptions. Analytical expressions for velocity, temperature, and concentration fields are derived and discussed for various physical parameters such as the dust particle relaxation time, Prandtl number, Schmidt number, and mass concentration parameter. The results show that the presence of fine dust significantly reduces the fluid velocity and enhances heat and mass transfer rates depending on the particle loading.