On the use of homotopy analysis method for solving unsteady MHD flow of Maxwellian fluids above impulsively stretching sheets

In the present work, unsteady MHD flow of a Maxwellian fluid above an impulsively stretched sheet is studied under the assumption that boundary layer approximation is applicable. The objective is to find an analytical solution which can be used to check the performance of computational codes in cases where such an analytical solution does not exist. A convenient similarity transformation has been found to reduce the equations into a single highly nonlinear PDE. Homotopy analysis method (HAM) will be used to find an explicit analytical solution for the PDE so obtained. The effects of magnetic parameter, elasticity number, and the time elapsed are studied on the flow characteristics.     

The influence of thermal radiation on MHD flow of Maxwellian fluids above stretching sheets

Flow induced in a viscoelastic fluid by a linearly stretched sheet is investigated assuming that the fluid is Maxwellian and the sheet is subjected to a transverse magnetic field. The objective is to investigate the effects of parameters such as elasticity number, magnetic number, radiative heat transfer, Prandtl number, and Eckert number on the temperature field above the sheet. To do this, boundary layer theory will be used to simplify energy and momentum equations assuming that fluid physical/rheological properties remain constant. A suitable similarity transformation will be used to transform boundary layer equations from PDEs into ODEs. Homotopy analysis method (HAM) will be invoked to find an analytical solution for the temperature field above the sheet knowing the velocity profiles (see Alizadeh-Pahlavan et al. [Alizadeh-Pahlavan A, Aliakbar V, Vakili-Farahani F, Sadeghy K. MHD flows of UCM fluids above porous stretching sheets using two-auxiliary parameter homotopy analysis method. Commun. Nonlinear Sci Numer Simulat, in press]). The importance of manipulating the transverse velocity component, v, will be discussed on the temperature field above the sheet.     

Solution of the MHD Falkner-Skan flow by homotopy analysis method

In this work, an analysis is performed to find the series solution of the boundary layer Falkner-Skan equation for wedge. The boundary layer similarity equation takes into account a special form of the chosen magnetic field. The results are obtained by solving the nonlinear differential system by homotopy analysis method (HAM). Numerical solution for the skin friction coefficient is also tabulated and compared with HAM.     

On the practical use of the spectral homotopy analysis method and local linearisation method for unsteady boundary-layer flows caused by an impulsively stretching plate

This paper expands the ideas of the spectral homotopy analysis method to apply them, for the first time, on non-linear partial differential equations. The spectral homotopy analysis method (SHAM) is a numerical version of the homotopy analysis method (HAM) which has only been previously used to solve non-linear ordinary differential equations. In this work, the modified version of the SHAM is used to solve a partial differential equation (PDE) that models the problem of unsteady boundary layer flow caused by an impulsively stretching plate. The robustness of the SHAM approach is demonstrated by its flexibility to allow linear operators that are partial derivatives with variable coefficients. This is seen to significantly improve the convergence and accuracy of the method. To validate accuracy of the the present SHAM results, the governing PDEs are also solved using a novel local linearisation technique coupled with an implicit finite difference approach. The two approaches are compared in terms of accuracy, speed of convergence and computational efficiency.     

An improved spectral homotopy analysis method for MHD flow in a semi-porous channel

In this paper we report on a novel method for solving systems of highly nonlinear differential equations by blending two recent semi-numerical techniques; the spectral homotopy analysis method and the successive linearisation method. The hybrid method converges rapidly and is an enhancement of the utility of the original spectral homotopy analysis method (Motsa et al., Commun Nonlinear Sci Numer Simul 15:2293?C2302, 2010; Computer & Fluids 39:1219?C1225, 2010) and an improvement on other recent semi-analytical techniques. We illustrate the application of the method by solving a system of nonlinear differential equations that govern the problem of laminar viscous flow in a semi-porous channel subject to a transverse magnetic field. A comparison with the numerical solution confirms the validity and accuracy of the technique and shows that the method converges rapidly and gives very accurate results.     

Homotopy analysis method for solving the MHD flow over a non-linear stretching sheet

The problem of the boundary layer flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a non-linear stretching sheet is considered. Homotopy analysis method (HAM) is applied in order to obtain analytical solution of the governing nonlinear differential equations. The obtained results are finally compared through the illustrative graphs with the exact solution and an approximate method. The compression shows that the HAM is very capable, easy-to-use and applicable technique for solving differential equations with strong nonlinearity. Moreover, choosing a suitable value of none–zero auxiliary parameter as well as considering enough iteration would even lead us to the exact solution so HAM can be widely used in engineering too.     

Effects of thermal radiation and space porosity on MHD mixed convection flow in a vertical channel using homotopy analysis method

A study of MHD mixed convection flow through porous space in the presence of a temperature dependent heat source in a vertical channel with radiation has been analyzed. The Rosseland approximation is considered in the modeling of the conduction radiation heat transfer and temperatures of the walls are assumed constants. The governing equations are expressed in non-dimensional form and the series solutions of coupled system of equations are constructed for velocity and temperature using homotopy analysis method (HAM). The effects of various involved parameters on the velocity and temperature field are shown and discussed. The coefficient of skin friction, and the rate of heat transfer coefficient are obtained and illustrated graphically.     

Exact solution of thermal radiation on MHD flow over a stretching porous sheet

The effect of radiation on MHD steady asymmetric flow of an electrically conducting fluid past a stretching porous sheet in the presence of radiation has been analyzed. Exact solutions for the velocity and temperature fields have been derived and the effects of radiation, magnetic, Prandtl number, wall temperature and suction (or injection) parameters have been studied with the help of graphs.     

Series solutions of nano boundary layer flows by means of the homotopy analysis method

We present here a ‘similar’ solution for the nano boundary layer with nonlinear Navier boundary condition. Three types of flows are considered: (i) the flow past a wedge; (ii) the flow in a convergent channel; (iii) the flow driven by an exponentially-varying outer flows. The resulting differential equations are solved by the homotopy analysis method. Different from the perturbation methods, the present method is independent of small physical parameters so that it is applicable for not only weak but also strong nonlinear flow phenomena. Numerical results are compared with the available exact results to demonstrate the validity of the present solution. The effects of the slip length ?, the index parameters n and m on the velocity profile and the tangential stress are investigated and discussed.     

Solution of nonlinear fractional differential equations using homotopy analysis method

In this article, the homotopy analysis method has been applied to solve nonlinear differential equations of fractional order. The validity of this method has successfully been accomplished by applying it to find the solution of two nonlinear fractional equations. The results obtained by homotopy analysis method have been compared with those exact solutions. The results show that the solution of homotopy analysis method is good agreement with the exact solution.     

Singularly perturbed homotopy analysis method

In this paper we combined the homotopy analysis method (HAM) and the method of integral manifold (MIM) to investigate the problem of thermal explosion in two-phases polydisperse combustible mixtures of gas with fuel droplets. The size distribution of the fuel droplets is assumed to be continuous in the form of an exponential distribution and is found from the solution of the kinetic equation for the probability density function. The system of the polydisperse fuel spray takes into account the effects of the thermal radiation and convection. By applying the HAM and the MIM, we derived an analytical solution of the system and we compared our results with the numerical solutions.     

Lie group analysis of unsteady MHD three dimensional by natural convection from an inclined stretching surface saturated porous medium

Lie group method is investigated for solving the problem of heat transfer in an unsteady, three-dimensional, laminar, boundary-layer flow of a viscous, incompressible and electrically conducting fluid over inclined permeable surface embedded in porous medium in the presence of a uniform magnetic field and heat generation/absorption effects. A uniform magnetic field is applied in the y-direction and a generalized flow model is presented to include the effects of the macroscopic viscous term and the microscopic permeability of porous medium. The infinitesimal generators accepted by the equations are calculated and the extension of the Lie algebra for the problem is also presented. The restrictions imposed by the boundary conditions on the generators are calculated. The investigation of the three-independent-variable partial differential equations is converted into a two-independent-variable system by using one subgroup of the general group. The resulting equations are solved numerically with the perturbation solution for various times. Velocity, temperature and pressure profiles, surface shear stresses, and wall-heat transfer rate are discussed for various values of Prandtl number, Hartmann number, Darcy number, heat generation/absorption coefficient, and surface mass-transfer coefficient.     

Static pull-in analysis of electrostatically actuated microbeams using homotopy perturbation method

In this study, static pull-in instability of electrostatically-actuated microbridges and microcantilevers is investigated considering different nonlinear effects. Galerkin’s decomposition method is utilized to convert the nonlinear differential equations of motion to nonlinear integro-algebraic equations. Afterward, analytic solutions to static deflections of the microbeams are obtained using the homotopy perturbation method. Results are in excellent agreement with those presented in the literature.     

Comparison of homotopy analysis method and homotopy perturbation method through an evolution equation

In this paper, the homotopy analysis method (HAM) proposed by Liao in 1992 and the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) proposed by He in 1998 are compared through an evolution equation used as the second example in a recent paper by Ganji et al. [D.D. Ganji, H. Tari, M.B. Jooybari, Variational iteration method and homotopy perturbation method for nonlinear evolution equations. Comput. Math. Appl. 54 (2007) 1018–1027]. It is found that the HPM is a special case of the HAM when =-1. However, the HPM solution is divergent for all x and t except t=0. It is also found that the solution given by the variational iteration method (VIM) is divergent too. On the other hand, using the HAM, one obtains convergent series solutions which agree well with the exact solution. This example illustrates that it is very important to investigate the convergence of approximation series. Otherwise, one might get useless results.     

Solving nonlinear fractional partial differential equations using the homotopy analysis method

In this article, the homotopy analysis method is applied to solve nonlinear fractional partial differential equations. On the basis of the homotopy analysis method, a scheme is developed to obtain the approximate solution of the fractional KdV, K(2,2), Burgers, BBM‐Burgers, cubic Boussinesq, coupled KdV, and Boussinesq‐like B(m,n) equations with initial conditions, which are introduced by replacing some integer‐order time derivatives by fractional derivatives. The homotopy analysis method for partial differential equations of integer‐order is directly extended to derive explicit and numerical solutions of the fractional partial differential equations. The solutions of the studied models are calculated in the form of convergent series with easily computable components. The results of applying this procedure to the studied cases show the high accuracy and efficiency of the new technique. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010     

On the similarity solutions of magnetohydrodynamic flows of power-law fluids over a stretching sheet

A rigorous mathematical analysis is given for a magnetohydrodynamics boundary layer problem, which arises in the two-dimensional steady laminar boundary layer flow for an incompressible electrically conducting power-law fluid along a stretching flat sheet in the presence of an exterior magnetic field orthogonal to the flow. In the self-similar case, the problem is transformed into a third-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation with certain boundary conditions, which is proved to be equivalent to a singular initial value problem for an integro-differential equation of first order. With the aid of the singular initial value problem, the uniqueness and existence results for (generalized) normal solutions are established and some properties of these solutions are explored.     

Numerical solution of lr fuzzy hunter-saxeton equation by using homotopy analysis method

In this paper, a LR fuzzy Hunter-Saxton equation is solved by using the homotopy analysis method (HAM). The approximation solution of this equation is calculated in the form of series which its components are computed by applying a recursive relation. The existence and uniqueness of the solution and the convergence of the proposed method are proved. A numerical example is studied to demonstrate the accuracy of the presented method.     

Solving a system of nonlinear fractional partial differential equations using homotopy analysis method

In this article, the homotopy analysis method (HAM) has been employed to obtain solutions of a System of nonlinear fractional partial differential equations. This indicates the validity and great potential of the homotopy analysis method for solving system of fractional partial differential equations. The fractional derivative is described in the Caputo sense.     

Comparison between the homotopy analysis method and homotopy perturbation method to solve coupled Schrodinger-KdV equation

In this paper, we apply the homotopy analysis method (HAM) and the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) to obtain approximate analytical solutions of the coupled Schrodinger-KdV equation. The results show that HAM is a very efficient method and that HPM is a special case of HAM.