Melting effect on mixed convective heat transfer with aiding and opposing external flows from the vertical plate in a liquid-saturated porous medium

In this paper, melting effect on mix ed convective heat transfer from a porous vertical plate with uniform wall temperature in the liquid-saturated porous medium with aiding and opposing external flows is numerically examined at steady state. The resulting boundary value problems (BVPs) are comprehensively solved by Runge-Kutta-Gill method and Newton's iteration for similarity solutions. As shown in the results, for aiding and opposing external flows, it is all found that the rate of convective heat transfer at the interface of solid and liquid phases is reduced with increasing melting strength. Additionally, the melting phenomenon decreases the thermal boundary layer regions of mixed convection in a porous medium. With melting effect, the heat transfer rate is also shown to be asymptotically approaching the forced or free convection as the value of Gr/Re approaches the limits of zero and infinity for aiding external flow; and the criteria for pure forced and mixed convection from an isothermal vertical flat plate in porous media with aiding and opposing external flows are established in melting process. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.