Stagnation point flow of a micropolar fluid towards a stretching sheet

The steady two-dimensional stagnation point flow of an incompressible micropolar fluid over a stretching sheet when the sheet is stretched in its own plane with a velocity proportional to the distance from the stagnation point, has been studied in this paper. The resulting equations of non-linear ordinary coupled differential equations are solved numerically using the Keller-box method. The results obtained for velocity, microrotation and skin friction are shown in tables and graphs. Comparison with the recent results of Mahapatra and Gupta {Heat Mass Transfer 38 (2002) 517} for the corresponding problem of a viscous fluid (K=0) has been done and it has been shown that the results are in excellent agreement.     

Non-orthogonal stagnation point flow towards a stretching sheet

The steady flow of a viscous and incompressible fluid impinging at some angle of incidence on a stretching sheet is studied. It is shown that the stream function splits into a Hiemenz and a tangential component. Numerical solutions of the relevant functions as well as the structure of the flow field are presented and discussed. It is found that the free stream obliqueness is the shift of the stagnation point toward the incoming flow and it depends on the inclination angle.     

Mixed convection unsteady stagnation point flow over a stretching sheet with heat transfer in the presence of variable free stream

An analysis is performed for the unsteady mixed convection flow of an incompressible viscous fluid about a stagnation point on a stretching sheet in the presence of a variable free stream. The equations of motion and energy are transformed into the ordinary differential equations by using similarity transformations. Homotopy analysis method is used for the solution of the governing problem. The results have been discussed by plots. The present values of the function are shown very close to the previous limiting solutions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flow of a micropolar fluid due to a porous stretching sheet and heat transfer

The present work investigates the micropolar fluid flow due to a permeable stretching sheet and the resulting heat transfer. Unlike the existing numerical works on the flow phenomenon in the literature, the prime interest here is to analytically work out shape of the solutions and identify whether they are unique. Indeed, unique solutions are detected and presented in the exact formulas for the associated boundary layer equations. Temperature field influenced by the microrotation is also mathematically resolved in the cases of constant wall temperature, constant heat flux and Newtonian heating. To discover the salient physical features of many mechanisms acting on the considered problem, it is adequate to have the analytical velocity and temperature fields and also closed-form skin friction/couple stress/heat transfer coefficients, all as given in the current paper. For instance, the practically significant rate of heat transfer is represented by a single formula valid for all three temperature cases.     

Lie-group method of solution for steady two-dimensional boundary-layer stagnation-point flow towards a heated stretching sheet placed in a porous medium

The boundary-layer equations for two-dimensional steady flow of an incompressible, viscous fluid near a stagnation point at a heated stretching sheet placed in a porous medium are considered. We apply Lie-group method for determining symmetry reductions of partial differential equations. Lie-group method starts out with a general infinitesimal group of transformations under which the given partial differential equations are invariant. The determining equations are a set of linear differential equations, the solution of which gives the transformation function or the infinitesimals of the dependent and independent variables. After the group has been determined, a solution to the given partial differential equations may be found from the invariant surface condition such that its solution leads to similarity variables that reduce the number of independent variables of the system. The effect of the velocity parameter λ, which is the ratio of the external free stream velocity to the stretching surface velocity, permeability parameter of the porous medium k ₁, and Prandtl number Pr on the horizontal and transverse velocities, temperature profiles, surface heat flux and the wall shear stress, has been studied.     

Numerical simulation of MHD stagnation point flow and heat transfer of a micropolar fluid towards a heated shrinking sheet

A comprehensive study of magneto hydrodynamics two‐dimensional stagnation flow with heat transfer characteristics towards a heated shrinking sheet immersed in an electrically conducting incompressible micropolar fluid in the presence of a transverse magnetic field is analyzed numerically. The governing continuity, momentum, angular momentum and heat equations together with the associated boundary conditions are first reduced to a set of self similar nonlinear ordinary differential equations using a similarity transformation and are then solved by a method based on finite difference discretization. Some important features of the flow and heat transfer in terms of normal and streamwise velocities, microrotation and temperature distributions for different values of the governing parameters are analyzed, discussed and presented through tables and graphs. The results indicate that the reverse flow caused due to shrinking of the sheet can be stopped by applying a strong magnetic field. The magnetic field enhances the shear stresses and decreases the thermal boundary layer thickness. The heat loss per unit area from the sheet decreases with an increase in the shrinking parameter. Micropolar fluids exhibit reduction in shear stresses and heat transfer rate as compared with Newtonian fluids, which may be beneficial in the flow and thermal control of polymeric processing. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mixed convection flow of a micropolar fluid over a stretching sheet

The mixed convective flow of a steady, incompressible micropolar fluid over a stretching sheet has been studied. This situation may arise in polymer technology involving the stretching of plastics sheets. The resulting system of non-linear ordinary coupled differential equations has been solved by the finite element method, using the variational Ritz model. Numerical results obtained for velocity, microrotation and temperature distributions are shown graphically. It was found that an increase in the micropolar parameter leads to a faster rate of cooling of the sheet. Also the velocity increases with an increase in micropolar effects. Microrotation effects are much smaller for the no-spin boundary condition as compared to the other boundary condition which assumes that the gyration vector is identical to the angular velocity of the fluid. Received on 9 February 1998     

Mixed convection boundary layers in the stagnation-point flow toward a stretching vertical sheet

An analysis is made for the steady mixed convection boundary layer flow near the two-dimensional stagnation-point flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a stretching vertical sheet in its own plane. The stretching velocity and the surface temperature are assumed to vary linearly with the distance from the stagnation-point. Two equal and opposite forces are impulsively applied along the x-axis so that the wall is stretched, keeping the origin fixed in a viscous fluid of constant ambient temperature. The transformed ordinary differential equations are solved numerically for some values of the parameters involved using a very efficient numerical scheme known as the Keller-box method. The features of the flow and heat transfer characteristics are analyzed and discussed in detail. Both cases of assisting and opposing flows are considered. It is observed that, for assisting flow, both the skin friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number increase as the buoyancy parameter increases, while only the local Nusselt number increases but the skin friction coefficient decreases as the Prandtl number increases. For opposing flow, both the skin friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number decrease as the buoyancy parameter increases, but both increase as Pr increases. Comparison with known results is excellent.     

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.     

Mixed convection heat transfer over a non-linear stretching surface with variable fluid properties

This article presents a numerical solution for the steady two-dimensional mixed convection MHD flow of an electrically conducting viscous fluid over a vertical stretching sheet, in its own plane. The stretching velocity and the transverse magnetic field are assumed to vary as a power function of the distance from the origin. The temperature dependent fluid properties, namely, the fluid viscosity and the thermal conductivity are assumed to vary, respectively, as an inverse function of the temperature and a linear function of the temperature. A generalized similarity transformation is introduced to study the influence of temperature dependent fluid properties. The transformed boundary layer equations are solved numerically, using a finite difference scheme known as Keller Box method, for several sets of values of the physical parameters, namely, the stretching parameter, the temperature dependent viscosity parameter, the magnetic parameter, the mixed convection parameter, the temperature dependent thermal conductivity parameter and the Prandtl number. The numerical results thus obtained for the flow and heat transfer characteristics reveal many interesting behaviors. These behaviors warrant further study of the effects of the physical parameters on the flow and heat transfer characteristics. Here it may be noted that, in the case of the classical Navier-Stokes fluid flowing past a horizontal stretching sheet, McLeod and Rajagopal (1987) [42] showed that there exist an unique solution to the problem. This may not be true in the present case. Hence we would like to explore the non-uniqueness of the solution and present the findings in the subsequent paper.     

A note on flow and heat transfer of a viscoelastic fluid over a stretching sheet

This paper presents a study of the flow and heat transfer of an incompressible homogeneous second grade fluid past a stretching sheet. The governing partial differential equations are converted into ordinary differential equations by a similarity transformation. The effects of viscous dissipation and work due to deformation are considered in the energy equation and the variations of dimensionless surface temperature and dimensionless surface temperature gradient with various parameters are graphed and tabulated. Two cases are studied, namely, (i) the sheet with constant surface temperature (CST case) and (ii) the sheet with prescribed surface temperature (PST case).     

Mixed convection flow of a micropolar fluid with radiation and chemical reaction

Effects of heat and mass transfer on the mixed convection flow of a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) micropolar fluid bounded by a stretching surface have been investigated. Homotopy analysis procedure is adopted for computations of a set of coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Numerical values of skin friction coefficient and Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are worked out. A comparative study is provided with the limiting available numerical solution. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Momentum and heat transfer in the magnetohydrodynamic stagnation-point flow of a viscoelastic fluid toward a stretching surface

An analysis is made of the steady two-dimensional stagnation-point flow of an incompressible viscoelastic fluid over a flat deformable surface when the surface is stretched in its own plane with a velocity proportional to the distance from the stagnation-point. It is shown that for a viscoelastic conducting fluid of short memory (obeying Walters’ Bʹ model), a boundary layer is formed when the stretching velocity of the surface is less than the inviscid free-stream velocity and velocity at a point increases with increase in the Hartmann number. On the other hand an inverted boundary layer is formed when the surface stretching velocity exceeds the velocity of the free stream and the velocity decreases with increase in the Hartmann number. A novel result of the analysis is that the flow near the stretching surface is that corresponding to an inviscid stagnation-point flow when the surface stretching velocity is equal to the velocity of the free stream. Temperature distribution in the boundary layer is found when the surface is held at constant temperature and surface heat flux is determined. It is found that in the absence of viscous and Ohmic dissipation and strain energy in the flow, temperature at a point decreases with increase in the Hartmann number.     

Mixed convection stagnation-point flow on vertical stretching sheet with external magnetic field

The problem of steady laminar magnetohydrodynamic （MHD） mixed con- vection stagnation-point flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a vertical stretch- ing sheet is studied. The effect of an externally magnetic field is taken into account. The transformed boundary layer equations are solved numerically by using an implicit finite-difference scheme. Numerical results are obtained for various values of the mixed convection parameter, Hartmann number, and Prandtl number. The effects of an exter- nally magnetic field on the skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number, velocity, and temperature profiles for both A 〉 1 and A ~ 1, where A is the velocity ratio parameter, are presented graphically and discussed in detail. Both assisting and opposing flows are considered, and it is found that dual solutions exist for the opposing flow.     

Magnetohydrodynamic stagnation-point flow of a power-law fluid towards a stretching surface

Steady two-dimensional stagnation-point flow of an electrically conducting power-law fluid over a stretching surface is investigated when the surface is stretched in its own plane with a velocity proportional to the distance from the stagnation-point. We have discussed the uniqueness of the solution except when the ratio of free stream velocity and stretching velocity is equal to 1. The effect of magnetic field on the flow characteristic is explored numerically and it is concluded that the velocity at a point decreases/increases with increase in the magnetic field when the free stream velocity is less/greater than the stretching velocity. It is further observed that for a given value of magnetic parameter M, the dimensionless shear stress coefficient |F^″(0)| increases with increase in power-law index n when the value of the ratio of free stream velocity and stretching velocity is close to 1 but not equal to 1. But when the value of this ratio further differs from 1, the variation of |F^″(0)| with n is non-monotonic.     

Flow and heat transfer in a second grade fluid over a stretching sheet

An analysis is carried out to study the flow and heat transfer characteristics in a second grade fluid over a stretching sheet with prescribed surface temperature including the effects of frictional heating, internal heat generation or absorption, and work due to deformation. In order to solve the fourth-order non-linear differential equation, associated with the flow problem, a fourth boundary condition is augmented and a proper sign for the normal stress modulus is used. It is observed that for a physical flow problem the solution is unique. The solutions for the temperature and the heat transfer characteristics are obtained numerically and presented by a table and graphs. Furthermore, it is shown that the heat flow is always from the stretching sheet to the fluid.     

Linear and non-linear analyses of convection in a micropolar fluid occupying a porous medium

Linear and weakly non-linear analyses of convection in a micropolar fluid occupying a high-porosity medium are performed. The Brinkman–Eringen momentum equation is considered. The linear and non-linear analyses are, respectively, based on the normal mode technique and truncated representation of Fourier series. The linear theory for a two-phase system reiterates that the preferred mode of convection is stationary as in the case of a single-phase system. An autonomous system of differential equations representing cellular convection arising in the study is considered to analyse the critical points. The Nusselt number is obtained as a function of micropolar and porous medium parameters.     

On stagnation point flow of Sisko fluid over a stretching sheet

The steady two-dimensional stagnation-point flow, represented by Sisko fluid constitutive model, over a stretching sheet is investigated theoretically. Using suitable similarity transformations, the governing boundary-layer equations are transformed into the self-similar non-linear ordinary differential equation. The transformed equation is then solved using a very efficient analytic technique namely the homotopy analysis method (HAM) and the HAM solutions are validated by the exact analytic solutions obtain in certain special cases. The influence of the power-law index (n), the material parameter (A) and the velocity ratio parameter (d/c) on the flow characteristics is studied and presented through several graphs. In addition, the local skin friction coefficient for several values of these parameters is tabulated and examined. The similarity solutions for both the Newtonian and the power-law fluids are presented as special cases of the analysis. The results obtained reveal that, in comparison with the Newtonian and the power-law fluids, the velocity profiles of the Sisko fluid are much faster (slower), for d/c<1 (d/c>1), respectively.     

Stagnation flow towards a shrinking sheet

The stagnation flow towards a shrinking sheet is studied. A similarity transform reduces the Navier-Stokes equations to a set of non-linear ordinary differential equations which are then integrated numerically. Both two-dimensional and axisymmetric stagnation flows are considered. It is found that solutions do not exist for larger shrinking rates and may be non-unique in the two-dimensional case. The non-alignment of the stagnation flow and the shrinking sheet complicates the flow structure. Convective heat transfer decreases with the shrinking rate due to an increase in boundary layer thickness.