Numerical simulation for heat and mass transport analysis for magnetic-nanofluids flow through stretchable convergent/divergent channels

Abstract

This paper adopts a theoretical approach to explore the heat and mass transport features for MHD Jeffery–Hamel flow of viscous nanofluids through convergent/divergent channels with stretching or shrinking walls. Recently, this type of flows generated by nonparallel inclined plates with converging or diverging properties has been frequently utilized in various industrial and engineering processes, like, blood flow through arteries, different cavity flows and flow through canals. The current flow model is formulated mathematically in terms of partial differential equations (PDEs) in accordance with conservation laws under an assumption that the flow is symmetric and purely radial. In addition, heat and mass transport mechanisms are being modeled in the presence of Brownian motion and thermophoretic aspects using Buongiorno’s nanofluid model. The dimensionless variables are employed to get the non-dimensional forms of the governing PDEs. The built-in MATLAB routine bvpc4 is implemented to determine the numerical solutions for governing the nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Numerical results are presented in the form of velocity, temperature and concentration plots to visualize the influence of active flow parameters. The simulated results revealed that the Reynold number has an opposite effect on dimensionless velocity profiles in the case of convergent and divergent channels. Besides, the temperature distributions enhance for higher values of Brownian motion parameter.