NATURAL-CONVECTION NEAR A CORNER OF AN ARBITRARY ANGLE FORMED BY 2 VERTICAL FLAT PLATES WITH UNIFORM SURFACE HEAT-FLUX

Abstract

The laminar natural convection flow along a corner of an arbitrary angle formed by two vertical flat plates with uniform surface heat flux is considered. For large modified Grashof numbers, the leading order comer layer equations and appropriate boundary conditions are formulated in an oblique coordinate system using the method of matched asymptotic expansions. The analysis is valid mathematically for any comer angle, 0-degrees < alpha(c) < 360-degrees. The velocity and temperature distributions for Prandtl numbers 0.733 (air) and 6.7 (water) are obtained using the ADI-type finite difference technique for corner angles ranging from 90-degrees to 270-degrees. The general features of the solutions are similar to those with isothermal wall conditions except for the temperature profiles in the vicinity of the corner.