Buoyancy Force Distribution Driven Couette Flow of Stably Stratified Fluid in a Vertical Channel Filled with Anisotropic Porous Material

This article examined the impacts of thermal stratification, anisotropic porous material and buoyancy force distribution on natural convection Couette flow between vertically oriented parallel plates. The problem under investigation is govern by a set of complex coupled second order partial differential equations which are solved using: D’Alembert (decoupling) method, Laplace Transform Technique and Riemann-sum Approximation algorithm. The research established that for some restrictions on the buoyancy force distribution parameter, the well-known suppressive nature of the thermal stratification on fluid temperature and velocity could be reversed. Furthermore, the occurrence of thermal and hydrodynamic reverse flow have been demonstrated for some certain values of buoyancy force distribution parameter. In addition, it is observed that the cooling of the fluid with respect to the temperature of the walls which results to the reverse flow could be postponed and diminished at large time. The research interestingly established that by neglecting the anisotropic and buoyancy force distribution parameters, taking the adiabatic stratification of the fluid into account and also subjecting the moving plate to impulsive motion, the numerical values for the skin friction of air ( P r = 0.71 ) of the present research favourably compares with the numerical results obtained by Singh [ 1 ].