Laminar boundary layer ow over

a horizontal permeable at plate

Orhan Aydn
*
, Ahmet Kaya
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey
Abstract
An analysis is performed to study the laminar boundary layer ow over a porous at
plate with injection or suction imposed at the wall. Two dierent analyses techniques are
used for the solution of boundary layer equations: similarity solution and numerical
solution. The eect of uniform suction/injection on the heat transfer is discussed. The
constant surface temperature thermal boundary condition is used for the horizontal at
plate. The eect of Prandtl number on heat transfer is also investigated. A scale analysis
is performed to get more insight into the Prandtl eect. Friction coecients and Nusselt
numbers are calculated for constant uid injection/suction along the plate. The results
indicate that the suction enhances the heat transfer coecient while injection causes a
decrease in heat transfer.
2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Boundary layer; Horizontal; Similarity; Numerical; Suction; Injection; Porous
1. Introduction
The analysis of laminar, two-dimensional ow past heated or cooled bodies
with porous walls is of interest in dierent engineering branches. Examples
include boundary layer control on airfoils, transpiration cooling of turbine
blades, lubrication of ceramic machine parts, food processing, electronics
cooling, the extraction of geothermal energy, nuclear reactor cooling system,
ltration process, etc.
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: oaydin@ktu.edu.tr (O. Aydn).
0096-3003/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.amc.2003.12.021
Applied Mathematics and Computation 161 (2005) 229240
www.elsevier.com/locate/amc
Watanabe [13] carried out theoretical studies on the investigation of forced,
free or mixed convection ows past heated and cooled bodies such as plate,
edge and cone with suction or injection. Chandran et al. [4] studied the eect of
magnetic eld on the ow and heat transfer past a continuously moving porous
plate in a stationary uid. Murthy and Singh [5] studied the eect of surface
mass ux on the non-Darcy natural convection over a horizontal at plate in a
saturated porous medium. Hsu et al. [6] studied the combined eects of the
shape factor, suction/injection rates and viscoelasticity on the ow and tem-
perature elds of the ow past a wedge. Chamkha [7] obtained similarity
solutions for the laminar boundary-layer equations describing steady, hydro-
magnetic two-dimensional ow and heat transfer in an electrically conducting
and heat-generating uid driven by a continuously moving porous surface
immersed in a uid-saturated porous medium. Rao et al. [8] analyzed the
momentum and heat transfer in the laminar boundary layer of a non-New-
tonian power-law uid owing over a at plate, which is moving in the
direction opposite to uniform main stream, and with arbitrary uid injection/
suction along the plate surface. Magyari and Keller [9] obtained exact solutions
for the two-dimensional self-similar boundary-layer ows induced by perme-
able stretching surfaces. In a recent study, Magyari et al. [10] studied mixed
convection boundary layer ow past a horizontal permeable at plate. El-
bashbeshy [11] studied the heat transfer characteristics of laminar mixed con-
vective boundary layer over a semi-innite horizontal at plate embedded in
porous medium.
Kelson and Farrell [12] studied self-similar boundary layer ow a micro-
polar uid driven by a porous stretching sheet and obtained analytical results
for the shear stress and the microrotation at the surface for the limiting cases of
large suction or injection.
The purpose of the present study is to analyze the eect of the surface mass
ux (i.e. the injection/suction parameter) on the momentum and heat transfer
about a horizontal porous plate with injection or suction at the wall.
2. Analysis
2.1. Mathematical formulation
Consider steady, incompressible, laminar two-dimensional, boundary layer
ow over a permeable plate. Far above the plate, the velocity and the tem-
perature of the uniform main stream are U
1
and T
1
, respectively. The x-
coordinate is measured from the leading edge of the plate and y-coordinate is
measured normal to the plate. The corresponding velocity components in the x
and y directions are u and v, respectively and surface mass ux, v
w
aligned
normal to a uniform free stream velocity, U
1
. The surface mass ux is assumed
230 O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240
to be constant with v
w
> 0 for injection and v
w
< 0 for suction. The entire
surface of the plate is maintained at a uniform temperature of T
w
. This situa-
tion is shown in Fig. 1. All the thermophysical properties are assumed to be
constant. It is also assumed that the magnitude of the injection velocity is not
large enough to signicantly alter the inviscid ow eld outside the boundary
layer.
Assuming that the Reynolds number is large enough for the boundary layer
assumptions to be applicable, the governing boundary layer equations of the
problem which are based on the balance laws of mass, momentum and energy
are:
ou
ox

ov
oy
0; 1
u
ou
ox
v
ou
oy
t
o
2
u
oy
2
; 2
u
oT
ox
v
oT
oy

t
Pr

o
2
T
oy
2
: 3
The appropriate boundary conditions for the velocity and temperature of this
problem are:
y 0; u 0; v v
w
; T T
w
constant;
y large u !U
1
; T !T
1
:
4
Here, U
1
and T
1
are the free stream velocity and temperature, respectively.
V
w
represents the suction/injection velocity.
2.2. Similarity solution
In the similarity solution, the governing partial dierential equations are
reduced to a set of ordinary dierential equations by means of a suitable
transformation. A useful similarity transformation is possible for this problem.
The following similarity variables are used [13]:
u
U
1
f
0
g; g
y
x

Re
x
p
; h
T
w
T
T
w
T
1
: 5
U

, T

y, v
x, u
v
w
Fig. 1. The schematic of the problem.
O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240 231
Substitution of the above similarity variables into Eqs. (1)(4) yields:
2f
000
ff
00
0; 6
h
00

Pr
2
h
0
f 0; 7
f 0 f
w
; f
0
0 1; h0 1; f
0
1 0; h1 0; 8
where f
w

2v
w
U
1

Re
x
p
.
Consequently, the velocity and temperature distributions are obtained by
solving Eqs. (6) and (7) via the fourth-order RungeKutta integration and the
shooting method.
Of special signicance for this type of ow and heat transfer situation are the
skin-friction coecient and the Nusselt number. These can be dened as fol-
lows:
c
f

s
w
1
2
qU
2
1

Re
x
p f
00
j
g0
and Nu
x

Re
x
p
h
0
j
g0
: 9
2.3. Numerical solution
Similarity solutions for the boundary layer equations have been introduced
in the previous section. Another way of solving the boundary layer equations
involves approximating the governing partial dierential equations by alge-
braic nite-dierence equations [14].
In most cases, it is convenient to write the equations in dimensionless form
before deriving the nite dierence approximations to them. The following
dimensionless variables are used:
U
u
U
1
; V
v

Re
L
p
U
1
; X
x
L
; Y
y

Re
L
p
L
; h
T
w
T
T
w
T
1
; 10
where Re
L
is the Reynolds number based on L. In terms of these variables Eqs.
(1)(3) become
oU
oX

oV
oY
0; 11
U
oU
oX
V
oU
oY

o
2
U
oY
2
; 12
U
oh
oX
V
oh
oY

1
Pr

o
2
h
oY
2
13
232 O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240
and the boundary conditions given in Eq. (4) become:
Y 0: U 0; V
f
w
2

X
p ; h 1;
Y large: U !1; h !0:
14
Again, the skin-friction coecient and the Nusselt number can be predicted
as follows:
c
f

2

X
p

Re
x
p
oU
oY

Y 0
and Nu
x

Re
x
p
X
p
oh
oY

Y 0
: 15
2.4. Scale analyses
A scale analysis is performed in order to predict the ow and heat transfer
phenomena based on the driving mechanisms of the momentum and heat
transfer for high-Pr Pr 1 uids and low-Pr uids Pr 1, respectively [15
17].
2.4.1. Pr 1 case
For the high-Pr uids such as oils, the rough geometry of the hydrodynamic
and thermal boundary layers that occur is given in Fig. 2. The momentum
equation (Eq. (2)) suggest a balance between inertia and viscous forces. In
terms of scales, this balance can be written as:
F
I
F
V
;
U
1
U
1
L
t
U
1
d
2
: 16
Also, the energy equation implies a balance between enthalpy ow and con-
duction:
Q
H
Q
K
;
U

T
Fig. 2. Pr 1 case.
O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240 233
U
h
DT
L
a
DT
d
2
h
: 17
Dividing Eq. (16) by Eq. (17) leads:
U
1
U
h
Pr
d
h
d

2
: 18
Using the similarity in Fig. 2, one obtains:
U
1
U
h

d
d
h
: 19
Combining Eqs. (18) and (19), we will obtain
d
d
h
Pr
1=3
: 20
The Nusselt number is dened as:
Nu
hL
k
: 21
From the energy balance at the wall, one obtains:
k
DT
d
h
hDT: 22
Recalling Eq. (20) and carrying h in Eq. (22) into Eq. (21), nally, we reach
[16]:
Nu Re
1=2
Pr
1=3
: 23
2.4.2. Pr 1 case
For the low-Pr uids such as liquid metals, the rough geometry of the
hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layers that occur is given in Fig. 3. If the

T
Fig. 3. Pr 1 case.
234 O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240
geometry is carefully examined, similar to the case for high-Pr uid, force and
energy balance lead, respectively:
U
1
L

t
d
2
;
U
1
DT
L
a
DT
d
2
h
: 24
Combining these above two relations gives the following:
d
d
h
Pr
1=2
: 25
Using this relation, the Nusselt number can be obtained as:
Nu Re
1=2
Pr
1=2
: 26
For the impermeable wall case, it is just a matter of several computations to
predict the coecients for the relations given in Eqs. (23) and (26). But for
the permeable wall case, the eect of the wall mass ux parameter, f
w
on
these relations will be questioned for both the injection and suction cases in
Section 3.
3. Results and discussion
In order to study the eect of suction or injection, the following values of the
suction/injection parameter, f
w
are used: )0.5, )0.2, )0.1, 0, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5.
Fig. 4 depicts representative proles of either f
0
or h for dierent values of f
w
,
f

0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
f
w
Pr = 1.0
-0.5
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.5
Fig. 4. Eect of f
w
on velocity (or temperature, as Pr 1) prole.
O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240 235
1.0
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
0.01
0.1
0.7
1.0
f
w
=-0.2

0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
0.01
0.1
0.7
1.0
10
Pr=50
f
w
= 0.0

0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
0.01
0.1
0.7
10
Pr=50
1.0
f
w
=0.2

Pr=50
10
Pr=50
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 5. Eect of Pr on temperature proles for dierent wall conditions: (a) injection, (b) imper-
meable and (c) suction.
236 O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240
respectively, since the distributions of f
0
and h are identical for Pr 1. It
should be noted that f
w
> 0 corresponds to suction, f
w
< 0 corresponds to
injection and f
w
0 represents the ow over an impermeable surface. As might
be expected, injecting uid into the boundary layer broadens the velocity dis-
tribution and increases the hydrodynamic boundary layer thicknesses as shown
in Fig. 4. Also, the wall shear stress would be increased with the application of
suction whereas injection tends to decrease wall shear stress. This can be ex-
plained by the fact that the wall velocity gradient is increased with the
increasing value of f
w
. Fig. 4 also aims to explore the eects of the injection
parameter on the temperature prole. The eect of injection is found to
broaden the temperature distribution, decrease the wall temperature gradient,
and hence reduce the heat transfer rate. On the other hand, the thermal
boundary layer becomes thinner and the wall temperature gradient becomes
larger when suction is applied.
The inuence of the Prandtl number, Pr on the heat transfer has been al-
ready explained through the scale analysis. Since the ow problem is uncoupled
from the thermal problem, changes in the values of Pr will not aect the uid
velocity. For this reason, velocity proles for this case are not shown.
Increasing the Prandtl number tends to reduce the thermal boundary layer
thickness along the plate. This yields a reduction in the uid temperature. As
the Prandtl number is increased, the suction or injection at the porous wall
appreciably aects the temperature variation. The boundary layer becomes
thicker for the injection case (Fig. 5a) when compared to that of the imper-
meable wall (Fig. 5b), while it becomes thinner for the suction case (Fig. 5c).
From the engineering point of view, the skin-friction coecient and the
Nusselt number are the two most important parameters, which lead the pres-
sure loss and the heat transfer rate, respectively. Fig. 6 shows the variation of
f
w
C
f
.
R
e
x
1
/
2
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0
1.1
-0.50 -0.25 0.00 0.25 0.50
similarity
numerical
Fig. 6. Variation of the skin-friction coecient with f
w
.
O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240 237
the friction coecient with the injection/suction parameter, f
w
. As seen, the
similarity results and numerical results are found to be in an agreement, which
gives a credit to the validity of each solution technique. As inferred from the
results of velocity proles given in Fig. 4, decreased hydrodynamic boundary
layer thicknesses by the increasing f
w
resulted in an increase at c
f
. That means
that the application of the suction at the wall enhances the momentum transfer,
while the injection of the uid decreasing it.
In the scale analysis, the physics of the problem leads to Nu f Re; Pr
relations in dierent forms for high- and low-Pr uids. For Pr 1, we obtain
Nu Re
1=2
Pr
1=3
, while Nu Re
1=2
Pr
1=2
is obtained for Pr 1. In view of these
scale analysis results, the eect of the wall mass ux is examined for both
high- and low-Pr regions. Fig. 7a shows the eect of f
w
on Nu=Re
1=2
Pr
1=3
for
f
w
N
u
/
R
e
x
1
/
2

P
r
1
/
2
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
-0.50 -0.25 0.00
(a)
0.25 0.50
Pr=0.01
0.1
(b)
f
w
N
u
/
R
e
x
1
/
2

P
r
1
/
3
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
-0.50 -0.25 0.00 0.25 0.50
Pr=50
10
7
1
Fig. 7. Eect of f
w
on the Nusselt number for (a) low-Pr and (b) high-Pr uids.
238 O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240
the high-Pr uids. As shown, increasing f
w
resulted an increase in the heat
transfer. This can be explained by the increasing temperature gradient or
decreasing thermal boundary layer thickness with the increasing f
w
(Fig. 4).
But, as seen from the gure, although we have included the eect of Prandtl
number in the heat transfer term, Nu=Re
1=2
Pr
1=3
, the eect of f
w
is inuenced
by the Prandtl number. As seen, for the higher values of the Prandtl number,
the eect of f
w
becomes much more important for the suction region f
w
> 0
comparing that for the injection region f
w
< 0. However, for lower values of
Prandtl number, the eect of f
w
is nearly the same for both the injection
(f
w
< 0) and suction f
w
> 0 cases, f
w
Nu=Re
1=2
Pr
1=2
variation suggesting a
linear variation (Fig. 7b). As already disclosed, increasing f
w
enhances the
heat transfer. This behavior can be explained from the fact a uid with a
larger Prandtl number possesses a larger heat capacity that and enhance the
heat transfer.
4. Conclusions
The problem of steady, two-dimensional laminar boundary layer ow about
a porous plate is analyzed using the similarity solution and the numerical
solution. Fluid suction or blowing at the surface is considered, which has been
found to have a considerable inuence on the heat transfer mechanism. Suction
of uid at the wall increases both the skin-friction coecient and the Nusselt
number; whereas, injection causes a decrease in both. The eect of the Prandtl
number on ow and heat transfer is also examined for low- and high-Pr uids.
The eect of the surface mass ux, f
w
on heat transfer in the low-Pr region is
found to be dierent to that in the high-Pr region.
References
[1] T. Watanabe, Free convection boundary layer ow with uniform suction or injection over o
cone, Acta Mech. 87 (1991) 19.
[2] T. Watanabe, Forced and free mixed convection boundary layer ow with uniform suction or
injection on a vertical plate, Acta Mech. 89 (1991) 123132.
[3] T. Watanabe, K. Funazaki, H. Taniguchi, Theoretical analysis on mixed convection boundary
layer ow over a wedge with uniform suction or injection, Acta Mech. 105 (1994) 133141.
[4] P. Chandran, N.C. Sachetti, A.K. Singh, Hydromagnetic ow and heat transfer past a
continuously moving porous boundary, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 23 (6) (1996) 889
898.
[5] P.S.V.N. Murthy, P. Singh, Thermal dispersion eects on non-Darcy natural convection over
horizontal plate with surface mass ux, Arch. Appl. Mech. 67 (1997) 487495.
[6] C.-H. Hsu, C.-H. Chen, J.-T. Teng, Temperature and ow elds for the ow of a second grade
uid past a wedge, Int. J. Non-Linear Mech. 32 (5) (1997) 933946.
[7] A.J. Chamkha, Hydromagnetic ow and heat transfer of a heat-generating uid over a surface
embedded in a porous medium, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 24 (6) (1997) 815825.
O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240 239
[8] J.H. Rao, D.R. Jeng, K.J. De Witt, Momentum and heat transfer in a power-law uid with
arbitrary injection/suction at a moving wall, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 42 (1999) 28372847.
[9] E. Magyari, B. Keller, Exact solutions for self-similar boundary-layer ows induced by
permeable stretching walls, Eur. J. Mech. B-Fluids 19 (2000) 109122.
[10] E. Magyari, I. Pop, B. Keller, Mixed convection boundary-layer ow past a horizontal
permeable at plate, Fluid Dyn. Res. 31 (2002) 215225.
[11] E.M.S. Elbashbeshy, Laminar mixed convection over horizontal at plate embedded in a non-
Darcian porous medium with suction and injection, Appl. Math. Comput. 121 (2001) 123128.
[12] N.A. Kelson, T.W. Farrell, Micropolar ow over a porous stretching sheet with strong suction
or injection, Int. Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 28 (4) (2001) 479488.
[13] P.H. Oosthuizen, D. Naylor, Introduction to Convective Heat Transfer Analysis, McGraw-
Hill, New York, 1999.
[14] S.V. Patankar, D.B. Spalding, Heat and Mass Transfer in Boundary Layers, second ed.,
International Textbook Co., London, 1970.
[15] A. Bejan, Convection Heat Transfer, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1984.
[16] V.S. Arpac, P.S. Larsen, Convection Heat Transfer, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1984.
[17] V.S. Arpac, Microscales of TurbulenceHeat and Mass Transfer Correlations, Gordon and
Breach Sci. Pub., Amsterdam, 1997.
240 O. Aydn, A. Kaya / Appl. Math. Comput. 161 (2005) 229240