Ia. Hassanien, COMBINED FORCED AND FREE-CONVECTION IN BOUNDARY-LAYER FLOW OF A MICROPOLAR FLUID OVER A HORIZONTAL PLATE, Zeitschrift fur angewandte Mathematik und Physik, 48(4), 1997, pp. 571-583
A boundary layer analysis is used to study the effect of buoyancy-indu
ced streamwise pressure gradients on heat transfer and laminar forced
convective flow of a micropolar fluid over a horizontal plate. In part
icular, self-similar solution is given for the case of a wall temperat
ure that is inversely proportional to the square root of the distance
from the leading edge. Such a solution does not exist if the buoyancy
parameter is smaller than a certain critical value, which is negative
(decelerated flow), but not yet small enough to satisfy the separation
criterion of vanishing shear stress at the wall. The effects of the b
uoyancy force and material parameters on the friction factor, total he
at transfer, displacement thickness, and wall couple stress as well as
the details of the velocity, microrotation and temperature fields are
discussed. The micropolar properties of the fluid are found to play a
n important role in controlling flow separation.