Diffusion of liquid hydrogen and oxygen in nonlinear mixed convection nanofluid flow over vertical cone

Abstract

The phenomenon of triple diffusive nonlinear mixed convection over a vertical cone is completely a new concept of rheological study and behaviours of such flows are not reported in the open literature as yet. The study of such flows has relevance to various industrial applications. In the current study, nanoparticles are considered in the working fluid that comprises of water as base fluid with three diffusive components, namely, heat, liquid hydrogen and oxygen. This innovative physical problem has mathematical formulation in the form of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDE's). In order to simplify the mathematical analysis, these equations are non-dimensionalised and then linearized, by utilizing non-similar Mangler's transformations and technique of Quasilinearization, respectively. The implicit finite difference scheme is used to transform the linear PDE's into block tri-diagonal system, which is then solved by utilizing Varga's algorithm. In this work, interesting results have been obtained, for example, the presence of nonlinear convection parameter for temperature leads to increase in the velocity profile, local skin-friction coefficient as well as the local wall heat transfer rate, while it causes reduction in the temperature profile. The wall suction reduces the concentration profiles, while it increases the corresponding gradients. The local Nusselt number is low for the mixture of nanoparticles, liquid hydrogen and oxygen, and water as compared to that for the corresponding ordinary mixture (i.e. not containing the nanoparticles). The surface roughness effects on transport rates are observed in terms of their sinusoidal variations which are prominent away from the apex of the cone. Further, the impacts of nanoparticles remains same for the present flow regime as in case of regular water based nanofluid flow systems.