Laminar free convection in boundary layers near horizontal cylinders and vertical axisymmetric bodies

Abstract

In this article the problem of describing free convection near either horizontal cylinders or vertical axisymmetric bodies with fairly arbitrary body contours is studied. The solutions of two, coupled, partial differential equations, for the temperature and stream functions, are represented by series which are universal with respect to body contours within a specified class of body shapes (e.g. round-nosed cylinders). The series appear to converge rapidly so that a minimum of computational effort is required, even for classes of body shapes which do not admit the usual similarity transformations. For either horizontal, circular cylinders or spheres the series converge faster than expansions of the Blasius type and one-term approximations compare favourably with some of the existing experimental data.