Effects of variable fluid viscosity on flow past a heated stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium in presence of heat source/sink

The boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a fluid through a porous medium towards a stretching sheet in presence of heat generation or absorption is considered in this analysis. Fluid viscosity is assumed to vary as a linear function of temperature. The symmetry groups admitted by the corresponding boundary value problem are obtained by using a special form of Lie group transformations viz. scaling group of transformations. These transformations are used to convert the partial differential equations corresponding to the momentum and the energy equations into highly non-linear ordinary differential equations. Numerical solutions of these equations are obtained by shooting method. It is found that the horizontal velocity decreases with increasing temperature-dependent fluid viscosity parameter up to the crossing-over point but increases after that point and the temperature decreases in this case. With the increase of permeability parameter of the porous medium the fluid velocity decreases but the temperature increases at a particular point of the sheet. Effects of Prandtl number on the velocity boundary layer and on the thermal boundary layer are studied and plotted.