Numerical study of porous channel flow in a rotating system by a homotopy method

Problems in lubrication, transpiration cooling, dialysis, gaseous diffusion processes, subterranean rivers fed by porous bedrock, and flow under the polar icecap are examples of porous channel flow in a rotating system. Using similarity equations the Navier-Stokes equations reduce to a 10th order two-point boundary value problem. For certain parameter ranges this problem is very difficult and is not amenable to simple shooting techniques or classical locally convergent iterative methods. A recently developed globally convergent homotopy algorithm is applied to the boundary value problem, and numerical results are reported for a wide range of parameter values.