Combined effects of non-uniform heat source/sink and thermal radiation on heat transfer over an unsteady stretching permeable surface

The present paper is concerned with the study of flow and heat transfer characteristics in the unsteady laminar boundary layer flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over continuously stretching permeable surface in the presence of a non-uniform heat source/sink and thermal radiation. The unsteadiness in the flow and temperature fields is because of the time-dependent stretching velocity and surface temperature. Similarity transformations are used to convert the governing time-dependent nonlinear boundary layer equations for momentum and thermal energy are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations containing Prandtl number, non-uniform heat source/sink parameter, thermal radiation and unsteadiness parameter with appropriate boundary conditions. These equations are solved numerically by applying shooting method using Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg method. Comparison of numerical results is made with the earlier published results under limiting cases. The effects of the unsteadiness parameter, thermal radiation, suction/injection parameter, non-uniform heat source/sink parameter on flow and heat transfer characteristics as well as on the local Nusselt number are shown graphically.