Thermal performance of circular convective–radiative porous fins with different section shapes and materials

•LSM is an accurate technique for simulating heat transfer in circular porous fins.•Rectangular, convex, triangular and exponential variable sections are considered.•Radiation and convection from porous fin are considered.•Effects of material and geometry on heat transfer from fins are studied.

In this study, heat transfer and temperature distribution equations for circular convective–radiative porous fins are presented. It’s assumed that the thickness of circular fins varies with radius so four different shapes, rectangular, convex, triangular and exponential, are considered. The heat transfer through porous media is simulated using passage velocity from the Darcy’s model. After deriving equation for each geometry, Least Square Method (LSM) and fourth order Runge–Kutta method (NUM) are applied for predicting the temperature distribution in the porous fins. The selected porous fin’s materials are Al, SiC, Cu and Si3N4. Results reveal that LSM has very effective and accurate in comparison with the numerical results. As a main outcome, Si3N4-exponential section fin has the maximum amount of transferred heat among other fins.

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