The Heat Transfer in Porous Media (ht) interface (), found in the Porous Media physics area under the Heat Transfer branch () when adding a physics interface, is used to model heat transfer by conduction and convection in porous media. A Porous Medium model is active by default on all domains, with Porous medium type set to Local thermal equilibrium. All functionality for including other domain types, such as a solid domain, is also available, and surface-to-ambient radiation may be considered.

The temperature equation defined in porous media domains corresponds to the convection-diffusion equation with thermodynamic properties averaging models to account for both solid matrix and fluid properties. This equation is valid when the temperatures into the porous matrix and the fluid are in equilibrium. If not, use The Local Thermal Nonequilibrium Interface instead.

The physics interface is an extension of the generic Heat Transfer interface. When this physics interface is added, the following default nodes are added in the Model Builder: Porous Medium, Thermal Insulation (the default boundary condition), and Initial Values. Then, from the Physics toolbar, add other nodes that implement, for example, boundary conditions. You can also right-click Heat Transfer in Porous Media to select physics features from the context menu.

By default, the shape functions used for the temperature in porous media are Linear.