NUMERICAL SIMULATION ON LAMINAR CONVECTION FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER OVER AN ISOTHERMAL HORIZONTAL PLATE

A numerical algorithm is presented for studying laminar convection flow and heat transfer over an isothermal horizontal plate. By means of similarity transformation, the original nonlinear coupled partial differential equations of flow are transformed to a pair of simultaneous nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Subsequently they are reduced to a first order system and integrated using Newton Raphson and adaptive Runge-Kutta methods. The computer codes are developed for this numerical analysis in Matlab environment. Velocity, and temperature profiles for various Prandtl number are illustrated graphically. Flow, and heat transfer parameters are derived as functions of Prandtl number alone. The results of the present simulation are then compared with experimental data in literature with good agreement.