The governing equation for Darcy-Forchheimer flow of non-Newtonian inelastic power-law fluid through porous media has been derived from first principles. Using this equation, the problem of Darcy-Forchheimer natural, forced, and mixed convection within the porous media saturated with a power-law fluid has been solved using the approximate integral method. It is observed that a similarity solution exists specifically for only the case of an isothermal vertical flat plate embedded in the porous media. The results based on the approximate method, when compared with existing exact solutions show an agreement of within a maximum error bound of 2.5%.
Key words non-Newtonian fluids - power-law fluids - Darcy-Forchheimer flow - natural convection - forced convection - mixed convection