State space approach to unsteady free convection flow of micropolar fluid

The equations of unsteady free convection flow of a micropolar fluid are cast into a matrix form using the state space and Laplace-transform techniques. The results obtained are used to generate solutions in the Laplace-transform domain to a broad class of problems in free convection flow. The technique is applied to a heated vertical plate problem and to a problem pertaining to a plate under uniform heating. The inversion of Laplace-transform is performed using a numerical approach. Numerical results concerning velocity, microrotation and temperature are given and illustrated graphically for both problems.