On natural convection from a vertical plate with a prescribed surface heat flux in porous media

This paper presents a theoretical and numerical investigation of the natural convection boundary-layer along a vertical surface, which is embedded in a porous medium, when the surface heat flux varies as (1 +x ²)), where is a constant andx is the distance along the surface. It is shown that for > -1/2 the solution develops from a similarity solution which is valid for small values ofx to one which is valid for large values ofx. However, when -1/2 no similarity solutions exist for large values ofx and it is found that there are two cases to consider, namely < -1/2 and = -1/2. The wall temperature and the velocity at large distances along the plate are determined for a range of values of .Notation g Gravitational acceleration - k Thermal conductivity of the saturated porous medium - K Permeability of the porous medium - l Typical streamwise length - q _w Uniform heat flux on the wall - Ra Rayleigh number, =gK(q _w /k)l/(v) - T Temperature - Too Temperature far from the plate - u, v Components of seepage velocity in the x and y directions - x, y Cartesian coordinates - Thermal diffusivity of the fluid saturated porous medium - The coefficient of thermal expansion - An undetermined constant - Porosity of the porous medium - Similarity variable, =y(1+x ) ^/3/x ^1/3 - A preassigned constant - Kinematic viscosity - Nondimensional temperature, =(T – T )Ra^1/3 k/qw - Similarity variable, = =y(log_e x)^1/3/x ^2/3 - Similarity variable, =y/x ^2/3 - Stream function