Transient natural convection adjacent to a vertical flat surface: The thermal capacity effect

A finite-difference numerical scheme is employed to obtain transient response solutions to the time-dependent partial differential equations describing the flow adjacent to a uniformly heated vertical flat plate. The plate is of finite thickness and has an appreciable thermal capacity. It is assumed to be immersed in an extensive quiescent body of fluid that has a Prandtl number of 7.6, as for water around room temperature. Extensive calculations of the effect of the thermal capacity of the plate on the nature of the transient flow behavior have been carried out. The resulting flow regimes are analyzed in detail.