Transient Analysis of Heat and Mass Transfer by Natural Convection in Power-Law Fluid past a Vertical Plate Immersed in a Porous Medium (Numerical Study)

This paper attempted a numerical examination of the problem of unsteady free convection with heat and mass transfer from an isothermal vertical flat plate to a non-newtonian fluid saturated porous medium. The flow in the porous medium was described via the Darcy-BrinkmanForchheimer model. The simultaneous development of the problem of boundary layers was obtained numerically by finite difference method. Boundary layer and Boussinesq approximations had been incorporated. Numerical calculations were carried out for the various parameters entering into the problem. Velocity, temperature and concentration profiles were shown graphically and the physical quantities of the problem were given in tables. It was found that as time approaches infinity, the values of friction factor, heat transfer and mass transfer coefficients approach the steady state values.