Periodic heat transfer by forced laminar boundary layer flow over a semi-infinite flat plate

The paper reports a study of periodic convection in a steady forced laminar boundary layer flow over a semi-infinite impermeable flat plate due to periodical variation of the wall heat flux. The Fourier transform based approach allows to obtain a transfer function for the boundary layer that can be used to solve also transient (non-periodic) heating problems, and examples are reported comparing with available studies in the open literature. The effect of periodic heating on the value of the the average heat transfer coefficient is analysed and it is found to be important for relatively high frequency fluctuations of the imposed heat flux, whereas fluctuation amplitude of the instantaneous heat transfer coefficient is non-negligible also for lower exciting frequency.