Marangoni Boundary Layer Flow and Heat Transfer of Graphene–Water Nanofluid with Particle Shape Effects

Abstract

Graphene nanofluids have attracted the attention of many researchers because of a variety of remarkable properties such as extraordinary electronic transport properties, high thermal conductivity, and large specific surface areas. This paper investigates the shape effects of nanoparticles on the Marangoni boundary layer of graphene–water nanofluid flow and heat transfer over a porous medium under the influences of the suction parameter. The graphene–water nanofluid flow was contained with various shapes of nanoparticles, namely sphere, column, platelet, and lamina. The problem is modeled in form of partial differential equations (PDES) with boundary conditions. The governing transport equations are converted into dimensionless form with the help of some suitable nondimensional variables. The solution of the problem was found numerically using the NDSolve technique of Mathematica 10.3 software. In addition, the numerical solutions were also compared with analytical results. The homotopy analysis method (HAM) is used to calculate the analytical results. The results show that lamina-shaped nanoparticles have better performance on temperature distribution while sphere-shaped nanoparticles are more efficient for heat transfer than other shapes of nanoparticles.