Channelized water driven flow of MHD carbon-nanotube nanofluid influenced by rotation, heat source and thermal radiation

Abstract

The efficiency enhancements of thermal energy systems are made with advancements made in the effective use of thermal solar collectors, operating fluid and the introduction of curved and transparent solar panels. In this paper, we present a prototype theoretical/mathematical model for the carbon nanotube-based curved solar panels combined with the solar thermal collector and the porous rotating channel. The analysis is carried out to study the effect of transversely applied magnetic, rotation of the porous channel, linear thermal radiation and the uniformly distributed heat source on the heat transfer characteristics of the single-walled (SWCNT) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). Due to the nonlinearity of the governing momentum and the heat transport equations and the limitation of the exact methods, numerical similarity solutions are obtained for the boundary value problem using the MATLAB function bvp4c. Influences of different parameters are observed through graphs on the nanofluid flow and temperature profiles. The velocity profile exhibits dual behavior for rising the nanoparticles’ volume fraction, the magnetic parameter, rotation, and the Reynolds number. The temperature profile increases with increasing nanoparticles and heat source parameters and decreases for increasing suction, rotation, Reynolds number, and thermal radiation. In some cases, flow profiles for SWCNT exceed those of MWCNT.