Buoyancy-induced inclined boundary layer flows in a saturated porous medium (Q1094995)

An implicit finite difference method is used to analyze the free convection flow in a saturated porus medium adjacent to an inclined plate, where wall temperature is a power function of the distance from the origin. Both the streamwise and normal components of the buoyancy force are retained in the momentum equations. The present formulation permits the angles of inclination ranging from 0 to close to 90 degrees from the horizontal. It is shown that as the inclination parameter \(\xi\) increases, both the velocity and temperature boundary layer thicknesses decrease, and the rate of surface heat transfer increases. These new results are also compared with the similarity solutions for an equivalent vertical plate, in which the normal component of the buoyancy force is neglected and the gravity component parallel to the inclined plate is used in the definition of the Rayleigh number. The results indicate that the equivalent vertical plate solutions may significantly underpredict the heat transfer rates for small values of the inclination parameter.