Low-Reynolds number flow of a viscous fluid in a channel partially filled with a porous medium

Steady flow inside a rectangular channel with wall suction and partially filled with a porous material is examined. We solve the Navier-Stokes equations in the clear fluid region of the channel and the Brinkman extended Darcy's law in the porous material. The stress jump conditions outlined by Ochoa-Tapia and Whitaker are employed at the interface between these two regions. Ochoa-Tapia and Whitaker's conditions contain an empirical constant β which is unknown a priori. In this work we propose a method to estimate β. To do so, we solve for the flow field using two different approaches. In the first approach, the flow is assumed to be of similarity form and a new asymmetric solution is reported; β is retained in this formulation. In the second approach, we re-pose the equations of motion over the entire domain by considering the porous medium as a sink-term (which can be turned on and off); β is not required in this formulation. We estimate the value of β by comparing the resulting flow fields. (author)