Thermal Radiation and MHD Effects in the Mixed Convection Flow of Fe3O4–Water Ferrofluid towards a Nonlinearly Moving Surface

Abstract

This paper investigated the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) mixed convection flow of Fe3O4-water ferrofluid over a nonlinearly moving surface. The present work focused on how the state of suction on the surface of the moving sheet and the effects of thermal radiation influence the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics within the stagnation region. As such, a similarity solution is engaged to transform the governing partial differential equations to the ordinary differential equations. A collocation method, namely the bvp4c function in the MATLAB software solves the reduced system, numerically. Two different numerical solutions were identified for the cases of assisting and opposing flows. The stability analysis was conducted to test the stability of the non-uniqueness solutions. The increment of the thermal radiation effect affects the rate of heat transfer to decrease. The stability analysis conveyed that the upper branch solution is stable and vice versa for the other solution.