G-jitter free convection boundary layer flow of a micropolar fluid near a three-dimensional stagnation point of attachment

Abstract

A numerical solution of the effect of small but fluctuating gravitational field, characteristic of g-jitter, on the free convection boundary layer flow near a three-dimensional stagnation point of attachment resulting from a step change in its surface temperature and immersed in a micropolar fluid is presented in this paper. The case when the spin gradient on the wall is zero (strong concentration of the microelements) is considered. The transformed non-similar boundary layer equations are solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme known as the Keller-box method to investigate the effects of variations in the forcing amplitude parameter, , forcing frequency parameter, , curvature ratio parameter, c, and micropolar parameter, K, on the skin friction and on the rate of heat transfer. The results are given for a value of the Prandtl number Pr 0.72. It has been found that these parameters affect considerably the considered flow and heat transfer characteristics. The comparison with earlier results for a Newtonian fluid (K 0) is shown to be very good.