Abstract
Free convection with and without radiation past a vertical plate embedded in a saturated porous medium has been analysed. The partial differential equations are non-dimensionalised and solved using Finite Element Method. Temperature distribution in the porous medium has been studied for constant and varying wall temperatures. For non-isothermal case, the wall temperature has been assumed as power law function. Numerical results for local Nusselt number are presented for the case of, with and without radiation. It is found that the local Nusselt number decreases with the height of the vertical plate for an isothermal wall temperature. However, local Nusselt number increases with the height of the plate for linearly varying wall temperature and it also increases with radiation.