Effect of Magnetic Field on the Unsteady Boundary Layer Flows Induced by an Impulsive Motion of a Plane Surface

Abstract

Abstract The unsteady laminar boundary layer flow of an electrically conducting viscous fluid near an impulsively started flat plate of infinite extent is considered, with a view to examine the influence of transverse magnetic field fixed to the fluid. A new type of similarity transformation is proposed, which renews the governing partial differential equation into a linear ordinary differential equation with four physical parameters, viz. unsteadiness parameter β, magnetic parameter M, and the velocity indices (p, q). The analytic solution of this equation has been found in terms of a first kind confluent hypergeometric function for some specific parameter regimes. This solution shows the structure of a new type of boundary layer flow that includes the solution of the first Stokes problem as a special case. For non-zero values of (p, q), there is a definite range of p (either −∞ < p < 2q or 2q < p < ∞ according to β < or > 0) for which this flow problem will be valid. This analysis reveals an important relation ( p β + M 2 = q β ) $(p\beta+{M^{2}}=q\beta)$ at which separation appears inside the layer and has been detected as the separation threshold of the problem. Indeed, this relation gives us the critical value of one when the others are known. Flow separation inside the layer is delayed with an increasing value of q but cannot be completely removed whatever is the value of q (>0). The present analysis ensures that the reverse flow can be suppressed by the use of a proper amount of magnetic field M depending upon the values of p, q, and β. The obtained result provides insight into the stability of the boundary layer flows.