FREE-CONVECTION OF A NON-NEWTONIAN POWER-LAW FLUID FROM A VERTICAL WAVY SURFACE WITH UNIFORM SURFACE HEAT-FLUX

The steady laminar free convection in the flow of a non-Newtonian powe r-law fluid along a vertical wavy surface with constant heat flux has been investigated in this paper. The transformed boundary layer equati ons are solved by using a very efficient implicit finite-difference me thod. A sinusoidal surface is used to elucidate the amplitude of the w avy surface effects. Along with the wall temperature, representative v elocity and temperature profiles are presented. Numerical results show that the wall temperature decreases as the power-law index increases, while it increases with the amplitude of the wavy surface. Comparison s with earlier work are also made for a flat plate immersed in a Newto nian fluid. The results are found to compare very well.