Study of free convective unsteady magnetohydrodynamic flow of Oldroyd-B fluid in the presence of chemical reaction

Abstract

This article is concerned with the study of free convective unsteady magnetohydrodynamic flow of the incompressible Oldroyd-B fluid along with chemical reaction. The fluid flows on a vertical plate that is impulsively brought in motion in the presence of a constant magnetic field which is applied transversely on the fluid. The structure has been modeled in the form of governing differential equations, which are then nondimensionalized and solved using a numerical technique, that is, Crank–Nicolson’s scheme to obtain solutions for velocity field, temperature distribution, and concentration profile. These solutions satisfy the governing equations as well as all initial and boundary conditions. The obtained solutions are new, and previous literature lacks such derivations. Some previous solutions can be recovered as limiting cases of our general solutions. The effects of thermophysical parameters, such as Reynolds number, Prandtl number, thermal Grashof number, modified Grashof number, Darcy number, Schmidt number, dissipation function, magnetic field, radiation–conduction, chemical reaction parameter, relaxation and retardation times on the velocity field, temperature, and concentration of fluid, are also examined and discussed graphically.