Development of flow and heat transfer of a viscous fluid in the stagnation-point region of a three-dimensional body with a magnetic field

Abstract

The development of flow and heat transfer of a viscous electrically conducting fluid in the stagnation point region of a three-dimensional body with an applied magnetic field is studied when the external stream is set into an impulsive motion from rest and at the same time the surface temperature is suddenly raised from that of the surrounding fluid. This analysis includes both short time solution (Rayleigh-type of solution) and the steady-state solution as time tends to infinity (Falkner-Skan type of solution). The unsteady three-dimensional boundary layer equations represented by a system of parabolic partial differential equations are solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme. For certain particular cases analytical solutions are obtained. In the absence of the magnetic field, the reverse flow occurs in the transverse component of the velocity in a certain portion of the saddle-point region (−1≦c<−0.4, wherec=b/a is the ratio of the velocity gradients in they- andx-directions at the edge of the boundary layer). The magnetic field delays or prevents the reverse flow. The surface shear stresses in the principal and transverse directions and the surface heat transfer increase with the magnetic field both in nodal point (0≦c≦1) and saddle point (−1≦c<0) regions. For a fixed magnetic field, the surface shear stress inx-direction and the surface heat transfer increase with time in nodal and saddle point regions, but the surface shear stress in the transverse direction increases with time for 0<c≦1 and decreases with increasing time for −1≦c<0.