Natural Convection of Non-Newtonian Fluids About a Horizontal Surface in a Porous Medium

Abstract

The problem of natural convection of a non-Newtonian power-law fluid about a horizontal impermeable surface in the porous medium is considered, where the plate is assumed with a nonuniform heat flux distribution. The present study is based on the boundary layer approximation and only suitable for a high Rayleigh number. Similarity solutions are obtained by using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method and the Nachtsheim-Swigert iteration scheme. The effects of the nonuniform wall heat flux qw(x) and the new power-law index n on the heat transfer characteristics are discussed.