Mixed Convection Heat and Mass Transfer in Three Dimensional Flow of a Viscous Incompressible Fluid past a Vertical Porous Plate Through a Porous Medium with Periodic Permeability

This paper considers the mixed convective mass and heat transfer flow of a viscous incompressible fluid through a highly porous medium with periodic permeability. The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of mixed convection and mass transfer on flow through a highly porous medium with periodic permeability which is bounded by an infinite vertical porous plate. Assuming the free stream velocity to be uniform, the governing equations of the flow field are solved and approximate solutions are obtained for the velocity, temperature, concentration distribution, skin friction and the rate of heat transfer. The effects of the pertinent parameters on the flow field are analyzed and discussed with the aid of figures and tables. It is observed that an increasing permeability parameter K_p has a retarding effect on velocity as well as skin friction of the flow field while the Grashof numbers for heat and mass transfer G_r, G_c have an accelerating effect on the velocity field. A growing Prandtl number P_r diminishes the temperature as well as the rate of heat transfer at the plate. In presence of a more diffusive species (larger S_c), the concentration boundary layer thickness is decreasing while the reverse effect is observed on the skin friction at the plate.