MHD boundary layer flow and heat transfer of nanofluids over a nonlinear stretching sheet: A numerical study

Abstract

Abstract The MHD laminar boundary layer flow with heat and mass transfer of an electrically conducting water-based nanofluid over a nonlinear stretching sheet with viscous dissipation effect is investigated numerically. This is the extension of the previous study on flow and heat transfer of a nanofluid over nonlinear stretching sheet (Rana and Bhargava, Commun. Nonlinear Sci. Numer. Simul. 17 (2012) 212–226). The governing equations are reduced to nonlinear ordinary differential equations using suitable similarity transformation. The effects of the governing parameters on dimensionless quantities like velocity, temperature, nanoparticle concentration, friction factor, local Nusselt, and Sherwood numbers are explored. It is found that the dimensionless velocity decreases and temperature increases with magnetic parameter, and the thermal boundary layer thickness increases with Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameters.