Transient Free Convection Flow of a Micropolar Fluid Over a Vertical Surface y

In recent years, the dynamics of micropolar fluids, originated from the theory of Eringen, has been a popular area of research. As the fluids consist of randomly oriented molecules, and as each volume element of the fluid has translational as well as rotational motions, the analysis of physical problems in these fluids has revealed several interesting phenomena, which are not found in Newtonian fluids. The present study presents a numerical study for transient natural convection heat transfer of a micropolar boundary layer flow near a vertical isothermal surface. The governing equations are formulated and solved numerically using the MackCormak’s technique. A comparison with previously published results on special cases of the problem shows excellent agreement. Representative results for the velocity, micro-rotation and temperature profiles are shown graphically for different values of material parameters. In general, it is found that the temperature increases inside the boundary layer for the micropolar flows as compared to the Newtonian flows. * * * Nomenclature

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