Natural convection flow of a viscous fluid with viscosity inversely proportional to linear function of temperature from a vertical wavy cone

Free convection over an isothermal vertical wavy cone immersed in a fluid w ith variable viscosity is studied in this paper. We consider the boundary-l ayer regime where the Grashof number is very large and assume that the wavy surfaces have O(1) amplitude and wavelength. Using the appropriate variabl es, which reduce the wavy cone to a flat one, the basic equations are trans formed to nonsimilar boundary-layer equations. These equations are then sol ved numerically using a very efficient implicit finite-difference method kn own as Keller box scheme. Detailed results for the streamlines, isotherms, reduced skin friction and heat transfer rates for a selection of parameter sets consisting of the viscosity parameter, wavy surface amplitude, half co ne angle and Prandtl number. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques et medicales E lsevier SAS.