Buoyancy effects on thermal boundary layer over a vertical plate with a convective surface boundary condition: new results

Abstract

In a recent paper by Makinde and Olanrewaju (J Fluids Eng 132:044502, 2010) the effect of thermal buoyancy along a stationary vertical plate with a uniform free stream flow was considered. The plate’s wall thermal boundary condition and the fluid thermal expansion coefficient were variable along the plate in order that the problem accepts a similarity solution. In the present work, the problem has been changed to have a constant heat transfer coefficient and a constant thermal expansion coefficient which is considered to be more realistic and has much more practical applications. The present problem is non-similar and results are obtained by numerical solution of the governing equations. The problem is governed by the Prandtl number, the non-dimensional distance along the plate and the convective Grashof number. It is found that the wall shear stress, the wall heat transfer and the wall temperature all increases with increasing distance and the wall temperature tends to 1. The influence of the convective Grashof number is to increase the wall shear stress and the wall heat transfer and to reduce the wall temperature.