Effect of Variable Viscosity and Thermal Conductivity on Unsteady Free Convective Flow of a Micropolar Fluid Past a Vertical Cone

Abstract

A numerical investigation of the effects of variable viscosity and thermal conductivity on an unsteady free convective MHD flow of a micropolar fluid past a vertical cone with variable heat flux, viscous dissipation, and Joule dissipation is carried out. The fluid viscosity and thermal conductivity are modeled by inverse linear functions of temperature. The governing partial differential equations are reduced to nondimensional ones, which are discretized using an efficient and unconditionally stable implicit finite difference method of the Crank–Nicolson type and solved for prescribed boundary conditions by an iterative scheme based on the Gauss–Seidel method. Numerical results are presented for the velocity, temperature, and microrotation rate profiles. The values of the skin friction and Nusselt number for various combinations of parameters are given.