Transient laminar forced convection with arbitrary variation in the wall heat flux

 The aim of the work is to present a detailed numerical study of the transient forced laminar convection flow over a flat plate, when thermal conditions are due to arbitrary wall heat flux variations in space. The energy governing equation is modelled using the Karman–Pohlhausen integral approach in the wide range of Prandtl numbers. The influence of both the thermal problem nature (transient heating and/or cooling processes) and the wall flux function on the resulting mathematical expressions is evidenced and the thermal boundary layer thickness behaviour is discussed. In addition, a particular attention has been focused on both the change in sign of the flux and the duration of the transient heating and cooling. Detailed thermal responses and convective heat coefficient evolutions due to the change of wall conditions are presented. Received on 14 April 2000 / Published online: 29 November 2001