The Effect of Inertia on Free Convection from a Horizontal Surface Embedded in a Porous Medium, with Internal Heat Generation

Ferdows M,Liu D

doi:10.4172/2090-0902.1000165

Abstract

The analysis is performed for the steady-state boundary layer flow with free convective heat transfer over a horizontal surface embedded in a fluid-saturated porous medium subject to variable wall heat flux (WHF) and variable wall temperature (VWT). In modeling the flow inertia, no slip boundary conditions and exponentially decaying internal heat generation (IHG) are taken into account. The similarity equations are solved numerically and their solutions are dependent on the problem parameters G, m, λ. The influence of such parameters on flow characteristics such as velocity, temperature profiles, the skin friction coefficient, and the Nusselt number are thoroughly discussed. It is found that the flow profiles along with physical parameters significantly altered the rate of heat transfer and induced more flow within the boundary layer than that of without IHG.

Highlights

Numerous phenomena involve free convection driven by internal heat generation
Nonsimilarity solutions for the non-Darcy mixed convection from a vertical flat plate embedded in a saturated porous medium for a power-law variation of the wall temperature were reported by Kodah and Duwairi [13]
In view of the above literature survey, it seems that the effect of inertia on free convection from a horizontal surface embedded in a porous medium with internal heat generation was not considered till at our best knowledge

Summary

Introduction

Numerous phenomena involve free convection driven by internal heat generation. Free convection, as a process of vital significance, has been of interest to researchers in both industry and academia, such as a recent numerical work by Liu et al [1]. Nonsimilarity solutions for the non-Darcy mixed convection from a vertical flat plate embedded in a saturated porous medium for a power-law variation of the wall temperature were reported by Kodah and Duwairi [13].

Results

Conclusion