Radiation effects on free convection over a vertical flat plate embedded in a porous medium with high porosity

Free convection of an optically thin dense fluid along an isothermal vertical surface embedded in a porous medium with high porosity has been studied. With appropriate transformations the boundary layer equations are reduced to local nonsimilarity equations. Numerical solutions of these equations are obtained by using the Keller box scheme as well as the local nonsimilarity method with second order truncation. The nonsimilar equations governing the flow are simulated by the above methods for fluid of Prandtl number equal to 5.4, Also, effects of the pertinent parameters, R-d, the radiation-conduction parameter and Delta, the surface heating parameter and also the modified Grashof number, Gr*, on the local skin friction and the local rate of heat transfer are shown graphically. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.