Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras

ME 6011 Convective Heat Transfer

Assignment -3 (Approx. Solns. to Laminar External B.L heat transfer) Due: Mar 2, 2013
Note: The assignments will be individually evaluated and penalized if found to be copied from
colleagues.
1) If the velocity boundary layer is thinner than the thermal boundary layer, show that the
local Nusselt number for the case of two-dimensional laminar boundary layer flow over
an isothermal flat plate without unheated starting length is given by the expression:
. Assume a cubic profile for temperature.
2) Consider laminar boundary layer flow over a flat plate with a uniform heat flux qw
applied from a distance x0 from the leading edge of the plate. Starting from the energy
integral equation of the form

and assuming cubic profiles for velocity and temperature, show that for Pr >1,

Compare this relationship with that of constant wall temp and comment.
3) Plot H(K) Vs K by varying the values of pressure gradient parameter . Fit a straight line
and show that the equation of this line is of the form H(K) = 0.47-6K (Walz Approx.)
4) For the flow past a circular cylinder, the free stream velocity varies as
where

is the uniform flow speed and R is the radius of the cylinder. By

employing Walz approximation from the previous problem, determine the location where
the boundary layer separates. Note that the experimentally observed separation location
is around 80 deg and this value is over predicted using the present method. Plot the
boundary layer thickness, momentum thickness and the local skin friction coefficient as a
function of the angular location (theta in deg). Also plot the non-dimensional velocity
profile as a function of at the locations of 10, 75 and 105 deg respectively. Using the
energy integral method, calculate the Nusselt number Nu defined based on the cylinder
diameter D and plot Nu as a function of
.
Note:

)+

and

5) The potential flow solution for the velocity distribution along a wedge-shaped wall is
given by
where C is a constant and the exponent m is related to the
wedge angle . The wedge surface is maintained at a uniform wall temperature without
an unheated starting length. Using the Walz approximations, obtain the expressions for
the local Nusselt number along the wedge surface for the values of = 0, and 1,
respectively. Compare the results with that derived using the Falkner-Skan similarity
solution.
Note: The value of pressure gradient parameter is a constant for each of the
corresponding wedge angle.
6) Consider the steady flow of a constant property fluid with a uniform free stream velocity
U and free stream temperature T over a plate of length L. The plate surface temperature
varies with the distance x from the leading edge according to

For the case of Pr >1, derive expressions for the local heat flux from the plate and the
local Nusselt number by using the Duhamel superposition integral method.