TRANSIENT FREE-CONVECTION OF NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS ALONG A WAVY VERTICAL PLATE INCLUDING THE MAGNETIC-FIELD EFFECT

A Prandtl transformation method is applied to study the transient free convection of non-Newtonian fluids along a wavy vertical plate in the presence of a magnetic field. A simple transformation is proposed to transform the governing equations into the boundary-layer equations an d solved numerically by the cubic spline approximation. A simple coord inate transformation is employed to transform the complex wavy surface to a vertical flat plate for a constant wall temperature by the numer ical method. The effects of the magnetic field parameter, the wavy geo metry and the non-Newtonian nature of the fluids on the flow character istics and heat transfer are discussed in detail. (C) 1996 by Elsevier Science Inc.