Effects of variable thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity on flow of Williamson nanofluid between two parallel disks

Abstract

The variable nature of the thermal conductivity of nanofluid with respect to temperature plays an important role in many engineering and industrial applications including solar collectors and thermoelectricity. Thus, the foremost motivation of this article is to investigate the effects of thermal conductivity and electric conductivity due to variable temperature on the flow of Williamson nanofluid. The flow is considered between two stretchable rotating disks. The mathematical modeling and analysis have been made in the presence of magnetohydrodynamic and thermal radiation. The governing differential equations of the problem are transformed into non-dimensional differential equations by using similarity transformations. The transformed differential equations are thus solved by a finite difference method. The behaviors of velocity, temperature and concentration profiles due to various parameters are discussed. For magnetic parameter, the radial and tangential velocities have showed decreasing behavior, while converse behavior is observed for axial velocity. The temperature profile shows increasing behavior due to an increase in the Weissenberg number, heat generation parameter and Eckert number, while it declines by increasing electric conductivity parameter. The nanoparticle concentration profile declines due to an increase in the Lewis number and Reynolds number.