MIXED CONVECTION FLOW OF A MICROPOLAR FLUID OVER A STRETCHING SHEET

The mixed convective flow of a steady, incompressible micropolar fluid over a stretching sheet has been studied. This situation may arise in polymer technology involving the stretching of plastics sheets. The r esulting system of non-linear ordinary coupled differential equations has been solved by the finite element method, using the variational Ri tz model. Numerical results obtained for velocity, microrotation and t emperature distributions are shown graphically. It was found that an i ncrease in the micropolar parameter leads to a faster rate of cooling of the sheet. Also the velocity increases with an increase in micropol ar effects. Microrotation effects are much smaller for the no-spin bou ndary condition as compared to the other boundary condition which assu mes that the gyration vector is identical to the angular velocity of t he fluid.