Heat Transfer Analysis on the Hiemenz Flow of a Non-Newtonian Fluid: A Homotopy Method Solution

Abstract

The mathematical model for the incompressible two-dimensional/axisymmetric non-Newtonian fluid flows and heat transfer analysis in the region of stagnation point over a stretching/shrinking sheet and axisymmetric shrinking sheet is presented. The governing equations are transformed into dimensionless nonlinear ordinary differential equations by similarity transformation. Analytical technique, namely, the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) with general form of linear operator is used to solve dimensionless nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The series solution is obtained without using the diagonal Padé approximants to handle the boundary condition at infinity which can be considered as a clear advantage of homotopy perturbation technique over the decomposition method. The effects of the pertinent parameters on the velocity and temperature field are discussed through graphs. To the best of authors’ knowledge, HPM solution with general form of linear operator for two-dimensional/axisymmetric non-Newtonian fluid flows and heat transfer analysis in the region of stagnation point is presented for the first time in the literature.