Heat transfer enhancement from an inclined plate through a heat generating and variable porosity porous medium using nanofluids due to solar radiation

Abstract

This work involves the numerical simulation of heat transfer enhancements by magnetohydrodynamic natural convection over an inclined, semi-infinite, non-reflecting, ideally transparent plate embedded in a variable-porosity, heat generating porous medium using nanofluid in the presence of solar radiation effect. The Brinkman extended Darcy model with the Forchheimer inertia term is assumed for the porous medium, while a single-phase model is used for the nanofluid model. Non-similar transformations are used to convert the governing equations to non-similar forms, and then a local non-similar technique is applied to solve the resulting system. Wide ranges of the governing parameter, namely, the heat loss coefficient, the Darcy number, the heat generation/absorption parameter, the magnetic field parameter, the nanoparticle volume fraction and the inclination angle are considered and a validation test is performed. The results show that among all the variable porosity models, M4 is found to be having a largest rate of fluid flow and temperature distributions, while M3 has the lowest. Also, the local Nusselt number is an increasing function of the heat loss coefficient and nanoparticle volume fraction.