Open Access

ARTICLE

Homotopy Analysis of Natural Convection Flows with Effects of Thermal and Mass Diffusion

Wei-Chung Tien¹, Yue-Tzu Yang¹, Cha’o-Kuang Chen^1,2

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, NCKU, Tainan City,Taiwan
2 Corresponding author.Tel.: +886 6 2757575-62140; Fax: +886 6 2342081; E-mail: ckchen@mail.ncku.edu.tw

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2012, 85(5), 447-462. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2012.085.447

Abstract

Both buoyancy effects of thermal and mass diffusion in the natural convection flow about a vertical plate are considered in this paper. The non-linear coupled differential governing equations for velocity, temperature and concentration fields are solved by using the homotopy analysis method. Without the need of iteration, the obtained solution is in the form of an infinite power series which indicates those series have high accuracy when comparing it with other-generated by the traditional method. The impact of the Prandtl number, Schmidt number and the buoyancy parameter on the flow are widely discussed in detail.

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Keywords

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