Heat transfer and flow of a slag-type non-linear fluid: Effects of variable thermal conductivity

In this paper, we study the effects of variable thermal conductivity on the flow and heat transfer in a slag-type non-linear fluid down a vertical wall. The constitutive relation for the heat flux vector is assumed to be the Fourier's law of conduction with a variable thermal conductivity which includes the second order effects of the volume fraction. We numerically solve the non-dimensional form of the governing equations to study the effects of various dimensionless numbers on the velocity, temperature and volume fraction. The results indicate that the thermal conductivity plays a major role in the temperature distribution. Also, for certain values of the dimensionless numbers, minor differences are observed in the velocity and volume fraction distribution compared with the case of constant thermal conductivity.