Convective heat transfer in a micropolar fluid over an unsteady stretching surface

Abstract

An unsteady boundary layer free convective flow and heat transfer of a viscous incompressible, microploar fluid over a vertical stretching sheet is investigated. The stretching velocity is assumed to vary linearly with the distance along the sheet. Two equal and opposite forces are impulsively applied along the <i>x</i>-axis so that the sheet is stretched, keeping the origin fixed in the micropolar fluid. The transformed highly non-linear boundary layer equations are solved numerically by an implicit finite difference scheme for the transient, state from the initial to the final steady-state. To validate the numerical method, comparisons are made with the available results in the literature for some special cases and the results are found to be in good agreement. The obtained numerical results are analyzed graphically for the velocity, the microrotation, and the temperature distribution; whereas the skin friction, the couple stress coefficient and the Nusselt number are tabulated for different values of the pertinent parameters. Results exhibit a drag reduction and an increase in the surface heat transfer rate in the micropolar fluid flow compared to the Newtonian fluid flow.