Effect of radiation on natural convection about a truncated cone

A boundary layer analysis is presented to investigate numerically the effec t of radiation on natural convection flow of an optically dense viscous flu id over an isothermal truncated cone in this paper. The nonsimilar governin g equations are obtained by using a suitable transformation and solved by t he Keller box method. Numerical results for the dimensionless velocity prof iles, the dimensionless temperature profiles, the local friction coefficien t and the local Nusselt number are graphically presented for the dimensionl ess distance xi, the Prandtl number Pr = 0.7, the radiation-conduction para meter R-d and the surface temperature parameter H. It is shown that increas ing xi, R-d and H increases the local Nusselt number. The local friction co efficient decreases with increasing the above three parameters. Whereas, fo r the larger value of R-d and H, the variation of the local friction coeffi cient with xi has the phenomenon of maximum. Furthermore, the local frictio n coefficient and the local Nusselt number of the truncated cone approach t hose of the inclined plate (full cone) for the case of xi=0 (xi --> infinit y). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.