Research is presented in this paper where the integral technique is utilized to find a primary dimensionless group for natural convection heat transfer from vertical flat plates. The discovery of this group from fundamental principles demonstrates the value of the chronologically mature integral technique even in this advanced era where numerical techniques are prevalent. The integral solution in the current research compares very favorably with experimental data for a wide range of Prandtl numbers, and also with several numerical models in the archival literature as well as empirical correlations, including one based on the fundamental dimensionless group proposed in this paper. The good agreement, coupled with the closed-form nature of the solutions, should once again affirm the usefulness of the integral technique as a research as well as an educational tool.
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