Laminar natural convection of power-law fluids over a horizontal heated flat plate

Natural convection of power-law fluids over a horizontal flat plate with constant heat flux is studied. The stretching transformations relating the similarity forms of the boundary layer velocity, pressure, and temperature profiles are applied to the governing boundary layer equations. The resultant set of coupled ordinary differential equations are solved analytically and numerically using the integral method and the finite difference method, respectively. The results are presented for the details of the velocity and temperature fields for various values of the non-Newtonian power-law viscosity index (n) and the generalized Prandtl number (Pr*). At a fixed value of the viscosity index, increasing the Prandtl number increases the skin friction and wall temperature. For Pr* > 1, a lower viscosity index results in larger wall skin friction, temperature scale, and thermal boundary layer thickness, and thus lower Nusselt number. The reverse trend is observed for Pr* < 1. By using an integral solution and the numerical results, a semi-analytical correlation for the Nusselt number is obtained, valid for 0.5 <= n <= 1.5 and 0.1 <= Pr*<= 10.