MHD stagnation point flow of a micropolar fluid towards a heated surface

The problem of two dimensional stagnation point flow of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid impinging normally on a heated surface in the presence of a uniform transverse magnetic field is analyzed. The governing continuity, momentum, angular momentum, and heat equations together with the associated boundary conditions are reduced to dimensionless form using suitable similarity transformations. The reduced self similar non-linear equations are then solved numerically by an algorithm based on the finite difference discretization. The results are further refined by Richardson’s extrapolation. The effects of the magnetic parameter, the micropolar parameters, and the Prandtl number on the flow and temperature fields are predicted in tabular and graphical forms to show the important features of the solution. The study shows that the velocity and thermal boundary layers become thinner as the magnetic parameter is increased. The micropolar fluids display more reduction in shear stress as well as heat transfer rate than that exhibited by Newtonian fluids, which is beneficial in the flow and thermal control of polymeric processing.     

Impact of thermal radiation on MHD slip flow over a flat plate with variable fluid properties

The influence of partial slip, thermal radiation and temperature dependent fluid properties on the hydro-magnetic fluid flow and heat transfer over a flat plate with convective surface heat flux at the boundary and non-uniform heat source/sink is studied. The transverse magnetic field is assumed as a function of the distance from the origin. Also it is assumed that the fluid viscosity and the thermal conductivity vary as an inverse function and linear function of temperature respectively. Using the similarity transformation, the governing system of non-linear partial differential equations are transformed into similarity non-linear ordinary differential equations and are solved numerically using symbolic software MATHEMATICA 7.0. The numerical values obtained within the boundary layer for the dimensionless velocity, temperature, skin friction coefficient and the Nusselt number are presented through graphs and tables for several sets of values of the parameters. The effects of various physical parameters on the flow and heat transfer characteristics are discussed from the physical point of view.     

Electro-magneto-hydrodynamic flow of couple stress nanofluids in micro-peristaltic channel with slip and convective conditions

This study explores the effects of electro-magneto-hydrodynamics,Hall currents,and convective and slip boundary conditions on the peristaltic propulsion of nanofluids(considered as couple stress nanofluids)through porous symmetric microchannels.The phenomena of energy and mass transfer are considered under thermal radiation and heat source/sink.The governing equations are modeled and non-dimensionalized under appropriate dimensionless quantities.The resulting system is solved numerically with MATHEMATICA(with an in-built function,namely the Runge-Kutta scheme).Graphical results are presented for various fluid flow quantities,such as the velocity,the nanoparticle temperature,the nanoparticle concentration,the skin friction,the nanoparticle heat transfer coefficient,the nanoparticle concentration coefficient,and the trapping phenomena.The results indicate that the nanoparticle heat transfer coefficient is enhanced for the larger values of thermophoresis parameters.Furthermore,an intriguing phenomenon is observed in trapping:the trapped bolus is expanded with an increase in the Hartmann number.However,the bolus size decreases with the increasing values of both the Darcy number and the electroosmotic parameter.     

Heat and mass transfer in stagnation-point flow towards a stretching surface in the presence of buoyancy force and thermal radiation

In this paper an analysis has been made to study heat and mass transfer in two-dimensional stagnation-point flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a stretching vertical sheet in the presence of buoyancy force and thermal radiation. The similarity solution is used to transform the problem under consideration into a boundary value problem of nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations containing Prandtl number, Schmidt number and Sherwood number which are solved numerically with appropriate boundary conditions for various values of the dimensionless parameters. Comparison of the present numerical results are found to be in excellent with the earlier published results under limiting cases. The effects of various physical parameters on the boundary layer velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are discussed in detail for both the cases of assisting and opposing flows. The computed values of the skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and Sherwood number are discussed for various values of physical parameters. The tabulated results show that the effect of radiation is to increase skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and Sherwood number.     

Thermal radiation effects on the flow and heat transfer in a liquid film on an unsteady stretching sheet

The influence of thermal radiation on the flow and heat transfer within Newtonian liquid film over an unsteady stretching sheet with and without thermocapillarity is examined. The governing non‐linear partial differential equations describing the problem are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using similarity transformation, which is solved numerically for different values of the thermal radiation parameter and the thermocapillarity parameter. The results show that the dimensionless velocity, the film thickness and the local Nusselt number increase as the thermocapillarity parameter increases, while the free surface temperature decreases with increasing the thermocapillarity parameter. Also, both the dimensionless temperature and the free surface temperature increase and the local Nusselt number decreases as the thermal radiation parameter increases. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variable viscosity and slip velocity effects on the flow and heat transfer of a power-law fluid over a non-linearly stretching surface with heat flux and thermal radiation

The flow and heat transfer of a non-Newtonian power-law fluid over a non-linearly stretching surface has been studied numerically under conditions of constant heat flux and thermal radiation and evaluated for the effect of wall slip. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into a set of coupled non-linear ordinary differential equations which are using appropriate boundary conditions for various physical parameters. The remaining set of ordinary differential equations is solved numerically by fourth-order Runge–Kutta method using the shooting technique. The effects of the viscosity, the slip velocity, the radiation parameter, power-law index, and the Prandtl number on the flow and temperature profiles are presented. Moreover, the local skin friction and Nusselt numbers are presented. Comparison of numerical results is made with the earlier published results under limiting cases.     

Nonlinear three-dimensional stretched flow of an Oldroyd-B fluid with convective condition,thermal radiation,and mixed convection

The effect of non-linear convection in a laminar three-dimensional Oldroyd-B fluid flow is addressed. The heat transfer phenomenon is explored by considering the non-linear thermal radiation and heat generation/absorption. The boundary layer assumptions are taken into account to govern the mathematical model of the flow analysis. Some suitable similarity variables are introduced to transform the partial differential equations into ordinary differential systems. The Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg fourth-and fifth-order techniques with the shooting method are used to obtain the solutions of the dimensionless velocities and temperature. The effects of various physical parameters on the fluid velocities and temperature are plotted and examined. A comparison with the exact and homotopy perturbation solutions is made for the viscous fluid case, and an excellent match is noted. The numerical values of the wall shear stresses and the heat transfer rate at the wall are tabulated and investigated. The enhancement in the values of the Deborah number shows a reverse behavior on the liquid velocities. The results show that the temperature and the thermal boundary layer are reduced when the nonlinear convection parameter increases. The values of the Nusselt number are higher in the non-linear radiation situation than those in the linear radiation situation.     

Melting heat transfer in an axisymmetric stagnation-point flow of the Jeffrey fluid

This investigation explores the characteristics of melting heat transfer in a boundary layer flow of the Jeffrey fluid near the stagnation point on a stretching sheet subject to an applied magnetic field. The governing boundary layer equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations by similarity transformations. Resulting nonlinear problems are solved analytically by the homotopy analysis method. It is noticed that an increase in the melting parameter decreases the dimensionless velocity and temperature, while an increase in the Deborah number increases the velocity and momentum boundary layer thickness.     

Scaling group transformation for MHD boundary layer flow over permeable stretching sheet in presence of slip flow with Newtonian heating effects

Taking into account the slip flow effects, Newtonian heating, and thermal radiation, two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic （MHD） flows and heat transfer past a permeable stretching sheet are investigated numerically. We use one parameter group transformation to develop similarity transformation. By using the similarity transformation, we transform the governing boundary layer equations along with the boundary conditions into ordinary differential equations with relevant boundary conditions. The obtained ordinary differential equations are solved with the fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta- Fehlberg method using MAPLE 13. The present paper is compared with a published one. Good agreement is obtained. Numerical results for dimensionless velocity, temperature distributions, skin friction factor, and heat transfer rates are discussed for various values of controlling parameters.     

Radiation effects on combined convection over a vertical flat plate embedded in a porous medium of variable porosity

The present paper is concerned with the study of radiation effects on the combined (forced-free) convection flow of an optically dense viscous incompressible fluid over a vertical surface embedded in a fluid saturated porous medium of variable porosity with heat generation or absorption. The effects of radiation heat transfer from a porous wall on convection flow are very important in high temperature processes. The inclusion of radiation effects in the energy equation leads to a highly non-linear partial differential equations which are transformed to a system of ordinary differential equations using non-similarity transformation. These equations are then solved numerically using implicit finite-difference method subject to appropriate boundary and matching conditions. A parametric study of the physical parameters such as the particle diameter-based Reynolds number, the flow based Reynolds number, the Grashof number, the heat generation or absorption co-efficient and radiation parameter is conducted on temperature distribution. The effects of radiation and other physical parameters on the local skin friction and on local Nusselt number are shown graphically. It is interesting to observe that the momentum and thermal boundary layer thickness increases with the radiation and decrease with increase in the Prandtl number.     

Radiative and Thermal Dispersion Effects on Non-Darcy Natural Convection with Lateral Mass Flux for Non-Newtonian Fluid from a Vertical Flat Plate in a Saturated Porous Medium

The problem of natural convective heat transfer for a non-Newtonian fluid from an impermeable vertical plate embedded in a fluid-saturated porous medium has been analyzed. Non-Darcian, radiative and thermal dispersion effects have been considered in the present analysis. The governing boundary layer equations and boundary conditions are cast into a dimensionless form and simplified by using a similarity transformation. The resulting system of equations is solved by using a double shooting Runge–Kutta method. The effect of viscosity index n, the conduction–radiation parameter R, the non-Darcy parameter Gr*, the thermal dispersion parameter Ds and the suction/injection parameter f_w on the fluid velocities, temperatures and the local Nusselt number are discussed.     

Lie group analysis for thermophoretic and radiative augmentation of heat and mass transfer in a Brinkman-Darcy flow over a flat surface with heat generation

A boundary layer analysis is presented to investigate numerically the effects of radiation,thermophoresis and the dimensionless heat generation or absorption on hydromagnetic flow with heat and mass transfer over a flat surface in a porous medium.The boundary layer equations are transformed to non-linear ordinary differential equations using scaling group of transformations and they are solved numerically by using the fourth order Runge-Kutta method with shooting technique for some values of physical parameters.Comparisons with previously published work are performed and the results are found to be in very good agreement.Many results are obtained and a representative set is displayed graphically to illustrate the influence of the various parameters on the dimensionless velocity,temperature and concentration profiles as well as the local skin-friction coefficient,wall heat transfer,particle deposition rate and wall thermophoretic deposition velocity.The results show that the magnetic field induces acceleration of the flow,rather than deceleration(as in classical magnetohydrodynamics(MHD) boundary layer flow) but to reduce temperature and increase concentration of particles in boundary layer.Also,there is a strong dependency of the concentration in the boundary layer on both the Schmidt number and mass transfer parameter.     

Flow of variable thermal conductivity fluid due to inclined stretching cylinder with viscous dissipation and thermal radiation

The aim of the present study is to investigate the flow of the Casson fluid by an inclined stretching cylinder. A heat transfer analysis is carried out in the presence of thermal radiation and viscous dissipation effects. The temperature dependent thermal conductivity of the Casson fluid is considered. The relevant equations are first simplified under usual boundary layer assumptions, and then transformed into ordinary differential equations by suitable transformations. The transformed ordinary differential equations are computed for the series solutions of velocity and temperature. A convergence analysis is shown explicitly. Velocity and temperature fields are discussed for different physical parameters by graphs and numerical values. It is found that the velocity decreases with the increase in the angle of inclination while increases with the increase in the mixed convection parameter. The enhancement in the thermal conductivity and radiation effects corresponds to a higher fluid temperature. It is also found that heat transfer is more pronounced in a cylinder when it is compared with a flat plate. The thermal boundary layer thickness increases with the increase in the Eckert number. The radiation and variable thermal conductivity decreases the heat transfer rate at the surface.     

Heat transfer in a radiating, nonsteady, three-dimensional stagnation flow

A similar solution has been obtained to the problem of simultaneous radiation and convection for nonsteady stagnation point flow over a three-dimensional blunt body with both boundary layer suction and injection. The diffusion approximation is used to characterize the radiative heat flux. The three-dimensional, time-dependent equations of motion and the energy equation have been transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations by the similarity transformation and the resulting ordinary differential equations have been solved numerically. The effects of accelerating and decelerating flow, the three-dimensional geometry, injection and suction, hot and cold wall conditions, and the conduction-to-radiation parameter on the temperature distribution within the flow have been investigated.     

Magneto-hydrodynamic mixed convection of a power-law fluid past a stretching surface in the presence of thermal radiation and internal heat generation/absorption

The problem of magneto-hydrodynamic mixed convective flow and heat transfer of an electrically conducting, power-law fluid past a stretching surface in the presence of heat generation/absorption and thermal radiation has been analyzed. After transforming the governing equations with suitable dimensionless variables, numerical solutions are generated by an implicit finite-difference technique for the non-similar, coupled flow. The solution is found to be dependent on the governing parameters including the power-law fluid index, the magnetic field parameter, the modified Richardson number, the radiation parameter, the heat generation parameter, and the generalized Prandtl number. To reveal the tendency of the solutions, typical results for the velocity and temperature profiles, the skin-friction coefficient, and the local Nusselt number are presented for different values of these controlling parameters.     

Constant heat flux solution for mixed convection boundary layer viscoelastic fluid

The mixed convection boundary layer of a viscoelastic fluid past a circular cylinder with constant heat flux is discussed. The boundary layer equations are an order higher than those for the Newtonian (viscous) fluid and the adherence boundary conditions are insufficient to determine the solution of these equations completely. The governing non-similar partial differential equations are transformed into dimensionless forms and then solved numerically using the Keller-box method by augmenting an extra boundary condition at infinity. Numerical results obtained in the form of velocity distributions and temperature profiles are presented for a range of values of the dimensionless viscoelastic fluid parameter. It is found that for some values of the viscoelastic parameter and some negative values of the mixed convection parameter (opposing flow) the momentum boundary layer separates from the cylinder. Heating the cylinder delays separation and can, if the cylinder is warm enough, suppress the separation completely. Similar to the case of a Newtonian fluid, cooling the cylinder brings the separation point nearer to the lower stagnation point.     

Heat and mass transfer by MHD mixed convection stagnation point flow toward a vertical plate embedded in a highly porous medium with radiation and internal heat generation

This paper examined the hydromagnetic mixed convection stagnation point flow towards a vertical plate embedded in a highly porous medium with radiation and internal heat generation. The governing boundary layer equations are formulated and transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations using a local similarity approach and then solved numerically by shooting iteration technique together with Runge-Kutta sixth-order integration scheme. A representative set of numerical results are displayed graphically and discussed quantitatively to show some interesting aspects of the pertinent parameters on the dimensionless axial velocity, temperature and the concentration profiles, local skin friction, local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number, the rate of heat and mass transfer. Good agreement is found between the numerical results of the present paper with the earlier published works under some special cases.     

The influence of thermal radiation on hydromagnetic Darcy-Forchheimer mixed convection flow past a stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium

A boundary layer analysis is performed to study the influence of thermal radiation and buoyancy force on two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic flow of an incompressible viscous and electrically conducting fluid over a vertical stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium in the presence of inertia effect. The governing system of partial differential equations is first transformed into system of ordinary differential equations using self-similarity transformation. A special form for magnetic field is chosen to obtain the similarity solution. The transformed boundary layer equations are solved numerically for some important values of the physical parameters. The present results are compared with the previously published papers and the results are found to be in excellent agreement. The important features of the flow, heat and mass transfer characteristics for different values of thermal radiation, porous permeability, magnetic field and buoyancy parameters are analyzed and discussed. The effects of various physical parameters on the skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number are also presented. It is found that increase in the value of thermal radiation parameter R ₁ increases the skin friction coefficient and Sherwood number whereas reverse trend is seen for the local Nusselt number.     

Heat transfer characteristics for the Maxwell fluid flow past an unsteady stretching permeable surface embedded in a porous medium with thermal radiation

An unsteady boundary layer flow of a non-Newtonian fluid over a continuously stretching permeable surface in the presence of thermal radiation is investigated. The Maxwell fluid model is used to characterize the non-Newtonian fluid behavior. Similarity solutions for the transformed governing equations are obtained. The transformed boundary layer equations are then solved numerically by the shooting method. The flow features and heat transfer characteristics for different values of the governing parameters (unsteadiness parameter, Maxwell parameter, permeability parameter, suction/blowing parameter, thermal radiation parameter, and Prandtl number) are analyzed and discussed in detail.     

Effects of partial slip on boundary layer flow past a permeable exponential stretching sheet in presence of thermal radiation

An analysis is presented to describe the boundary layer flow and heat transfer towards a porous exponential stretching sheet. Velocity and thermal slips are considered instead of no-slip conditions at the boundary. Thermal radiation term is incorporated in the temperature equation. Similarity transformations are used to convert the partial differential equations corresponding to the momentum and heat equations into highly non-linear ordinary differential equations. Numerical solutions of these equations are obtained by shooting method. It is found that the fluid velocity and temperature decrease with increasing slip parameter. Temperature is found to decrease with an increase of thermal slip parameter. Thermal radiation enhances the effective thermal diffusivity and the temperature rises.