Thermal Boundary Layer Theory When fluid flows at a high Reynolds number along a plate, the flow filed

can be divided into two unequally large regions. One is the bulk flow region, where the viscosity can be neglected, which is called the inviscid outer flow. The second region is the very thin boundary layer at the wall where the viscosity and velocity transition must be taken into account. The studies of boundary layer theory evolve from the investigation the effects of velocity filed to the combination of velocity field and temperature field. When wall is heated to a certain temperature, heat is transferred to the flow filed and it is observed that the temperature filed also has a boundary-layer character at high Reynolds number, which is referred as thermal boundary layer. The heat transfer throng thermal boundary is important in industry processing as well as in this project.

Thermal Boundary Layer Equation for Natural Convection

When the physical properties (include density, viscosity, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity) of fluid in the thermal boundary can be assumed to be constant and independent of the temperature and pressure, the temperature filed in the thermal boundary layer can be analyse separately with the velocity filed. However, in most general case, these physical properties can depend on the temperature and pressure. A consequence of the dependence of the density and the viscosity on the temperature is that there is a coupling of velocity to the temperature filed. Buoyancy forces is the one that result from density effects. The derivation of boundary layer equations are based on the conservation of mass, momentum and energy equations of fluid flow. The governing equation of two dimensional laminar incompressible flow of viscous fluid motion over a vertical plate can be expressed as: [6.1] ( ( ) ) [6.2] [6.3]

where u and v denoting the velocity components in the x and y direction, and x is the coordinate along the plate and y is the coordinate perpendicular to x. In addition, T is the fluid temperature, is the dynamic viscosity. When buoyancy forces alone serves as the driven force that produce flow, the heat transfer between wall and thermal boundary layer is called nature convection or free convection. A simple example is the vertical flat plate (shown in Fig 6.1) whose temperature Tw is greater than the surrounding temperature T. In this analysis, it is assumed that there is there is no flow in the outer flow region. In other words, the free stream velocity is zero at the boundary edge. The fundamental equations again are the boundary layer equations 6.1-6.3. In addition, it is assumed that and volumetric expansion coefficient of air is

, the resulting basic equations for nature convection flow are : [6.4] ( ( ) ) [6.5] [6.6]

The solutions for isothermal surface condition have been first solved by using boundary conditions.

Integral method of analysis is used to solve the equations [] by Sparrow et al in Holman Firstly, the velocity and temperature profile are solved by using the above boundary conditions. It is assumed that that velocity profiles have geometrically similar shape at various x distances along the plate and can be represent as a polynomial function of y multiplied by some arbitrary function of x, which is in the form of

Then, the resulting velocity and temperature distribution are substitute into the integral form of momentum and energy equation.

The resultant expression for the boundary-layer thickness is

Where

is the Grashof number ; is the Nusselt number

Boundary Layer Equation for Mixed Convection In this mixed convection, flow is also raised solely from the differences in the density caused by temperature difference however with an arbitrary free stream velocity at the edge of boundary layer. Therefore, the boundary layer equations [6.4-6.6] for natural convection are also applied to mixed convection however with different boundary condition. Assume the wall temperature is constant. The boundary conditions for the mixed convection problem are as follows: At At u=0, v=0, T=Tw=constant u=u, T=Ta

where u is the free stream velocity. The problem of mixed convection along an isothermal vertical plate has been treated for the first time by Sparrow and Gregg [11]. Thereafter, many solutions have been appeared including local similarity method, perturbation series and finite difference methods. Most of these works are based on constant physical properties of free stream. Effects of viscosity variation with temperature have been studied by Hady et al [2] and Soundalgekar et al [10]. Similarity Solution Method Most of existing analytical studies for the mixed convection problem are based on similarity solution method by assuming constant physical properties of the free stream and isothermally heated plate. Thereafter, some of studies also explore the effect of variable viscosity on the boundary layer heat transfer by using same method and assuming the viscosity varied as an inverse function of temperature. In similarity solution method, similarity variables are introduced. These similarity variables relate the desired values to

suitably chosen reference values, and then the dimensionless solution can only depend on dimensionless position coordinates and on other dimensionless values. [] Based on the basic fluid flow equation and boundary conditions above, the introduced similarity variables are usually as follows: [7] [8] [9] where, is the similarity variable defined by and the velocity profile is defined as

is the defined stream function, where

and

is the defined dimensionless variable for temperature is a constant defined by is the Reynolds number is the Prandtl number Then, the momentum and energy equation [] transformed into [10] [11] with boundary conditions:

[12] where is the Archimedes number

Then, many numerical methods can be used to solve Equation [10] and [11] with the boundary conditions [12].Hady et al (1996) studies the influences of variable viscosity and buoyancy force on a laminar boundary layer flow on a vertical flat plate. He solved these equations by using Runge-Kutta integration scheme with the Newton-Raphson shooting method, for Prandtl number 0.7, the viscosity parameter ranging from -10 to 10 and

Archimedes number ranging from 0 to 10. The velocity profile and temperature profile are generated based on different Archimedes number and .

Studies the same problem by also including the Prandtal number, and he concluded that the results of Hady et al are almost agreed with theirs for small Archimedes number however unrealistic for large values of the Archimedes number, which may due to the assuming ambient Prandtal number constant in the entire boundary layer. Reviewing most of studies, it can be concluded that a usual practice for the solution of boundary layer problems with variable viscosity or other properties of free steam is to use of suitable similarity variables and make a transformation of the partial differential equations of fluid motion and solve them.

Ref[Mixed convection boundary layer a a continuous flat plate with variable viscosity] Ref[forced and mixed convection boundary layer flow along a flat plate with variable viscosity and variable prandtl number]