Analysis of MHD and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Thermally Radiative Upper-Convected Maxwell Fluid Flow between Moving Plates: Semi-Analytical and Numerical Solution

Abstract

The current paper studies the MHD and heat transfer characteristics of radiative upper-convected Maxwell fluid flow between two plates approaching or receding from each other with injection at the fixed lower porous plate. The governing momentum and energy equations are reduced into non-linear ordinary differential equations employing similarity transformations. With the help of the Homotopy Perturbation Method (HPM), an approximate analytic solution is obtained. This work aims to determine the effects of Reynolds number (R), Deborah number (De), Radiation parameter (Rd), Magnetic parameter (M), and Prandtl number (Pr) on the velocity and temperature profiles. It is observed that the Deborah number has a direct impact on the velocity profile when there is a squeezed flow. It is also observed that the magnetic parameter shows an indirect impact on the temporal distribution for both the upper plate moving away and towards the lower. The variations in the significant physical parameters on the coefficient of skin friction and heat transfer rates are also calculated. The results are then compared with the classical finite difference method and are in excellent agreement. It is found that larger the magnetic parameter, the dominance of viscous forces retards the velocity in the core region, and the increase in radiation parameter suppresses the heat transfer rates. This study is helpful in industrial applications, specifically in polymer processing.