Unsteady free convective heat transfer in third-grade fluid flow from an isothermal vertical plate: A thermodynamic analysis

The current study investigates theoretically and numerically the entropy generation in time-dependent free-convective third-grade viscoelastic fluid convection flow from a vertical plate. The nondimensional conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy are solved using a Crank-Nicolson finite difference method with suitable boundary conditions. Expressions for known values of flow-variables coefficients are also derived for the wall heat transfer and skin friction and numerically evaluated. The effect of Grashof number, Prandtl number, group parameter (product of dimensionless temperature difference and Brinkman number) and third-grade parameter on entropy heat generation is analyzed and shown graphically. Bejan line distributions are also presented for the influence of several control parameters. The computations reveal that with increasing third-grade parameter, the entropy generation decreases and Bejan number increases. Also, the comparison graph shows that contour lines for third-grade fluid vary considerably from the Newtonian fluid. The study is relevant to non-Newtonian thermal materials processing systems.