Thermodynamic method to two dimensional stagnation flow and heat transfer

The purpose of this paper is to develop a variational technique, using the variational principle of non-equilibrium thermodynamics for the solution of laminar stagnation point flow and heat transfer in two dimensions. The governing principle of dissipative processes is formulated for the problem and then using the boundary conditions of the system the elementary trial functions of third degree are assumed for the flow and temperature fields in the vicinity of the wall. The viscous and thermal boundary layer thicknesses, the skin friction and the rate of heat transfer from the wall to the fluid are obtained. It is found that these new approximate results are quite close to the exact known ones. These results are better than those of the Kármán-Pohlhausen technique.The authors are thankful to the referee for his valuable suggestions.