Dual Reciprocity Boundary Element Method for Magnetohydrodynamic Flow Using Radial Basis Functions

Abstract

A dual reciprocity boundary element method is given to obtain the solution in terms of velocity and induced magnetic field for the study of MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) flow through a rectangular duct having insulating walls. The equations are transformed to two types of nonlinear Poisson equations and the right-hand sides in these equations are approximated using combinations of two classes of radial basis functions (the value of the function and its normal derivatives are utilized for approximation). Computations are carried out for several values of the Hartman number (0 h M h 10) by using constant boundary elements. Comparisons are made for two types of formulations and for traditional and osculatory type approximations of the right-hand side functions. It is found that osculatory interpolation gives better results than traditional interpolation and the type of the Poisson equation, which contains derivative of the unknown function, is better than the other type, which contains unknown function only. The results for velocity and induced magnetic field are illustrated by some selected graphs.