Electrothermal analysis in two-layered couple stress fluid flow in an asymmetric microchannel via peristaltic pumping

Abstract

Being motivated from the recent developments in biomicrofluidics, a mathematical model is presented to analyze the two-layered electrothermal flow via peristaltic propulsion of couple stress fluids caused by velocity and thermal slip conditions. An asymmetric microchannel is considered for the flow regime with different zeta potential moving with wave velocity. Couple stress fluid has been taken for aqueous solution to represent the non-Newtonian characteristics of physiological fluids. A lubrication approach with Debye H $$\ddot{u}$$ ckel linearization is taken to obtain the analytical solution. Furthermore, heat transfer analysis is performed to analyze the thermal characteristics and variations in Nusselt number in the presence of thermal radiation. The study shows that the temperature reduces with increasing the electrical double layer thickness, thermal radiation, couple stress parameter, and magnitude of Brinkman number, however, it enhances with increasing the Joule heating and thermal slip effects. The rate of heat transfer enhances with Joule heating effects, while the trend is reversed due to the presence of two-layered electroosmotic flow and couple stress effect.