Influence of variable permeability on combined convection along a nonisothermal wedge in a saturated porous medium.

Abstract

Mixed convection along a vertical nonisothermal wedge embedded in a fluid-saturated porous media incorporating the variation of permeability and thermal conductivity is studied. The surface temperature is assumed to vary as a power of the axial coordinate measured from the leading edge of the plate. A nonsimilar mixed convection parameter ζ and a pseudo-similarity variable η are introduced to cast the governing boundary layer equations into a system of dimensionless equations which are solved numerically using finite difference method. The entire mixed convection regime is covered by the single nonsimilarity parameter ζ=[1+(Ra x /Pe x )1/2]−1 from pure forced convection (ζ=1) to pure free convection (ζ=0). The problem is solved using nonsimilarity solution for the case of variable wall temperature. Velocity and temperature profiles as well as local Nusselt number are presented. The wedge angle geometry parameter is ranged from 0 to 1.