Mixed convection - A comparison between experiment and an exact numerical solution of the boundary layer equations

A numerical solution for mixed convection flows adjacent to vertical surfaces when the Prandtl number is exactly 0.733 is presented. The boundary flow next to the vertical plate is defined in terms of governing equations for mass, momentum, and energy, considering the flow to evolve between the Blasius similarity state at the leading edge to a pure free convection similarity state downstream. A characterizing nondimensional coordinate is employed to account for the local relative magnitudes of buoyancy and inertia forces at points along the plate. Good correlations were found between velocity profiles and maximum velocities, while underestimations were apparent at large distances from the plate when the boundary layer equations were used. The nondimensional coordinate was determined to effectively estimate the magnitude of the underestimation.