Boundary Layer Flow Past a Wedge Moving in a Nanofluid

Abstract

The problem of steady boundary layer flow past a stretching wedge with the velocityuw(x)in a nanofluid and with a parallel free stream velocityue(x)is numerically studied. It is assumed that at the stretching surface the temperatureTand the nanoparticle fractionCtake the constant valuesTwandCw, respectively. The ambient values (inviscid fluid) ofTandCare denoted byT∞andC∞, respectively. The boundary layer governing partial differential equations of mass, momentum, thermal energy, and nanoparticles recently proposed by Kuznetsov and Nield (2006, 2009), are reduced to ordinary differential equations along with the corresponding boundary conditions. These equations are solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference method for some values of the governing parameters, such asβ,λ,Pr,Le,Nb, andNt, which are the measure of the pressure gradient, moving parameter, Prandtl number, Lewis number, the Brownian motion parameter, and the thermophoresis parameter, respectively.