Analysis of thermal dispersion effect on vertical-plate natural convection in porous media (Q1819651)

The effect of transverse thermal dispersion on natural convection from a vertical, heated plate in a porous medium is examined analytically. The results show that due to the better mixing of the thermal dispersion effect, the heat transfer rate is greatly increased. By taking the no- slip boundary effect into account, it is found that the flow has dual- layer structure. For the inner region, the velocity gradient is very large and the viscous resistance due to the presence of the wall is important. For the outer, much wider, region the velocity gradient is rather small and the viscous resistance term can be neglected. A singular perturbation method is employed to get the higher-order corrections due to the inclusion of the no-slip boundary effect.