Effects of variable viscosity on non-Darcy MHD free convection along a non-isothermal vertical surface in a thermally stratified porous medium

An analysis is performed for non-Darcy free convection flow of an electrically conducting fluid over an impermeable vertical plate embedded in a thermally stratified, fluid saturated porous medium for the case of power-law surface temperature. The present work examines the effects of non-Darcian flow phenomena, variable viscosity, Hartmann-Darcy number and thermal stratification on free convective transport and demonstrates the variation in heat transfer prediction based on three different flow models. The wall effect on porosity variation is approximated by an exponential function. The effects of thermal dispersion and variable stagnant thermal conductivity are taken into consideration in the energy equation. The resulting non-similar system of equations is solved using a finite difference method. Results are presented for velocity, temperature profiles and local Nusselt number for representative values of different controlling parameters. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.