A HIGHER-ORDER ANALYSIS OF NATURAL-CONVECTION IN A CORNER

A study of natural convection flow in a right angled corner formed by a semi-infinite vertical plate, which is maintained at the ambient temperature, and a semi-infinite horizontal plate, which is prescribed with a uniform heat flux, is carried out for moderately large values of the Grashof number by the method of matched asymptotic expansions. Higher-order corrections are found for the velocity and temperature fields as well as for the heat transfer and skin friction coefficients. The interaction between the two boundary-layers, which form on the vertical and horizontal plates, takes place through an isothermal outer flow. Eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenfunctions which are associated with the inner expansions have been sought. We are able to continue the solution up to the contribution played by the first eigenvalue and to uniquely find the first eigensolution. Numerical results have been obtained for a wide range of values of the Prandtl number, delta, but the results are only presented for delta = 0.72 (air) and 6.7 (water). It is found that higher-order corrections to the classical boundary-layer theory are quite significant even for Grashof numbers of order 10(9).