Transport in Porous Media 36: 245–254, 1999. c  1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 245 Mixed Convection Effect on Melting from a Vertical Plate in a Porous Medium RAMA SUBBA REDDY GORLA 1 , M. A. MANSOUR 2 , I. A. HASSANIEN 2 and A. Y. BAKIER 2 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio 44115, U.S.A. 2 Department of Mathematics, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt (Received: 16 February 1998; in final form: 5 November 1998) Abstract. In the present work, the effect of mixed convection about vertical surfaces on the phenomenon of melting process in a fluid-saturated porous medium is analyzed on the basis of boundary layer approximations. Similarity solutions are obtained for aiding external flow. The final similarity equations are integrated numerically by use of the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. Results are reported for the flow and thermal fields in the melt region. The melting phenomenon decreases the local Nusselt number at the solid–liquid interface. Key words: porous media, heat transfer, mixed convection. Nomenclature C heat capacity. f dimensionless stream function. g acceleration due to gravity. h heat transfer coefficient. k permeability for the porous medium. K thermal conductivity. L plate length. M melting parameter. Nu Nusselt number. q ′′ wall heat flux. Re Reynolds number. T temperature. u, v velocity components in x and y directions. U ∞ free stream velocity. x , y axial and normal coordinates. α effective thermal diffusivity. β volumetric coefficient of thermal expansion. η similarity variable. θ dimensionless temperature. ν kinematic viscosity. ξ nonsimilar parameter. ρ density of fluid.