Numerical study of transient magnetohydrodynamic radiative free convection nanofluid flow from a stretching permeable surface

Abstract

Transient mixed convective laminar boundary layer flow of an incompressible, viscous, dissipative, electrically conducting nanofluid from a continuously stretching permeable surface in the presence of magnetic field and thermal radiation flux is studied. The model used for the unsteadiness in the momentum, temperature, and concentration fields is based on the time-dependent stretching velocity and surface temperature and concentration. Similarity transformations are used to convert the governing time-dependent nonlinear boundary layer equations for momentum, thermal energy, and concentration to a system of nonlinear ordinary coupled differential equations with appropriate boundary conditions. The transformed model is shown to be controlled by a number of thermophysical parameters, namely the magnetic parameter, thermal convective parameter, mass convective parameter, suction parameter, radiation-conduction parameter, Eckert number, Prandtl number, Lewis number, Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter, and the unsteadiness parameter. Numerical solutions are obtained with the robust Nactsheim–Swigert shooting technique together with Runge–Kutta sixth-order iteration schemes. Comparisons with previously published work are performed and are found to be in excellent agreement. The effects of selected parameters on velocity, temperature, and concentration distributions and furthermore on skin friction coefficients, heat transfer rate (Nusselt number), and mass transfer rate (Sherwood number) are presented graphically. The current study has applications in high-temperature nano-technological materials processing.