Convective wall plume in power-law fluids

A series of theoretical and numerical analyses have been investigated and carried out within the framework of the classical boundary layer theory for the steady-state free and mixed convective flow arising from a line thermal source positioned at the leading edge of a vertical adiabatic surface embedded in non-Newtonian fluids. In Chapter I, for the natural convection, precise conditions of finding similarity solutions for the wall plume are derived. A family of numerical solutions for n ranging from 0.2 to 2.0 and for Pr = 10 and 100 are investigated throughout the cases. The boundary layer theory and the second-order correction to it in order to account for the non-boundary layer effects have been presented for the adiabatic and the isothermal wall cases by the method of matched asymtotic expansion. In Chapter II, the non-similar boundary layer solutions are carried out to study the mixed convective flow of a power-law fluid. The boundary layer equations containing an important mixed convection parameter are also solved for several values of the power-law viscosity index, the buoyancy parameter and Prandtl number of the fluid. Numerical solutions for the dimensionless stream function, velocity, temperature and local skin friction coefficient are obtained by using a central finite-difference approximation. In appendices, sample computer programs are used and sample outputs are provided.