AN INTEGRAL APPROACH TO THE CALCULATION OF SKIN FRICTION AND HEAT-TRANSFER IN THE LAMINAR-FLOW OF A HIGH-PRANDTL-NUMBER POWER-LAW NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID PAST A WEDGE

An integral approach to the theoretical analysis for the skin friction of a non-Newtonian, power-law-fluid flow over a wedge is presented, when the inertia terms in the boundary-layer equations are small but need consideration. The method adopted for the solution of the equations considers an integrated average value of the inertia terms in the momentum equation. The values of the velocities and the boundary-layer thickness obtained from the hydrodynamic analysis are used for the calculation of the thermal-boundary-layer thickness. A linear velocity profile is assumed for the flow field within the thermal boundary layer as the fluids chosen for the analysis are high-Prandtl-number fluids. The results of the skin friction and the rates of the heat transfer are tabulated for a number of values of the flow behaviour index, n, varying from 0.05 to 5.0. This analysis is applicable to viscous polymer solutions having high Prandtl numbers.