Aspects of the free-convection boundary layer in a temperature-stratified medium (Q1317799)

It is shown that in the presence of stratification the general equations of the free-convection boundary layer can be considerably simplified. It is also shown that using these simplifications makes it possible to obtain analytic solutions or to make quite accurate estimates of the flow and heat transfer characteristics in internal convection problems. The results of the proposed approach to the description of the boundary layer are tested with reference to numerical solutions of the complete natural convection equations (the Navier-Stokes equations in the Boussinesq approximation).