Non-Darcy mixed convection from a vertical plate in saturated porous media-variable surface heat flux

Nonsimilarity solutions for non-Darcy mixed convection from a vertical impermeable surface embedded in a saturated porous medium are presented for variable surface heat flux (VHF) of the power-law form. The entire mixed convection region is divided into two regimes. One region covers the forced convection dominated regime and the other one covers the natural convection dominated regime. The governing equations are first transformed into a dimensionless form by the nonsimilar transformation and then solved by a finite-difference scheme. Computations are based on Keller Box method and a tolerance of iteration of 10⁻⁵ as a criterion for convergence. Three physical aspects are introduced. One measures the strength of mixed convection where the dimensionless parameter Ra^* _x /Pe^3/2 _x characterizes the effect of buoyancy forces on the forced convection; while the parameter Pe _x /Ra^*2/3 _x characterizes the effect of forced flow on the natural convection. The second aspect represents the effect of the inertial resistance where the parameter K′U _∞/ν is found to characterize the effect of inertial force in the forced convection dominated regime, while the parameter (K′U _∞/ν)(Ra^*2/3 _x /Pe _x ) characterizes the effect of inertial force in the natural convection dominated regime. The third aspect is the effect of the heating condition at the wall on the mixed convection, which is presented by m, the power index of the power-law form heating condition. Numerical results for both heating conditions are carried out. Distributions of dimensionless temperature and velocity profiles for both Darcy and non-Darcy models are presented. Received on 26 May 1997