Buoyancy and wall conduction effects on forced convection of micropolar fluid flow along a vertical slender hollow circular cylinder

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the flow and heat transfer characteristics of forced convection in a micropolar fluid flowing along a vertical slender hollow circular cylinder with wall conduction and buoyancy effects. The non-linear formulation governing equations and their associated boundary conditions are solved using the cubic spline collocation method and the finite difference scheme with a local non-similar transformation. This study investigates the effects of the conjugate heat transfer parameter, the Richardson number, the micropolar parameter, and the Prandtl number on the flow and the thermal fields. The effect of wall conduction on the thermal and the flow fields are found to be more pronounced in a system with a greater buoyancy effect or Prandtl number but is less sensitive with a greater micropolar material parameter. Compared to the case of pure forced convection, buoyancy effect is found to result in a lower interfacial temperature but higher the local heat transfer rate and the skin friction factor. Finally, compared to Newtonian fluid, an increase in the interfacial temperature, a reduction in the skin friction factor, and a reduction in the local heat transfer rate are identified in the current micropolar fluid case. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.