MHD flow and heat transfer of a magnetite–water nanofluid in porous medium under the effects of chemical reaction

Abstract

PurposeDue to the extensive industrial applications of stagnation flow problems, the present work aims to investigate the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) flow and heat transfer of a magnetite nanofluid (here Fe3O4–water nanofluid) impinging a flat porous plate under the effects of a non-uniform magnetic field and chemical reaction with variable reaction rate.Design/methodology/approachSimilarity transformations are applied to reduce the governing partial differential equations with boundary conditions into a system of ordinary differential equations over a semi-infinite domain. The modified fourth-order Runge–Kutta method with the shooting technique which is developed for unbounded domains is conducted to give approximate solutions of the problem, which are then verified by results of other researchers, showing very good agreements.FindingsThe effects of the volume fraction of nanoparticles, permeability, magnetic field, chemical reaction and Schmidt number on velocity, temperature and concentration fields are examined and graphically illustrated. It was found that fluid velocity and temperature fields are affected strongly by the types of nanoparticles. Moreover, magnetic field and radiation have strong effects on velocity and temperature fields, fluid velocity increases and thickness of the velocity boundary layer decreases as magnetic parameter M increases. The results also showed that the thickness of the concentration boundary layer decreases with an increase in the Schmidt number, as well as an increase in the chemical reaction coefficient.Research limitations/implicationsThe thermophysical properties of the magnetite nanofluid (Fe3O4–water nanofluid) in different conditions should be checked.Practical implicationsStagnation flow of viscous fluid is important due to its vast industrial applications, such as the flows over the tips of rockets, aircrafts, submarines and oil ships. Moreover, nanofluid, a liquid containing a dispersion of sub-micronic solid particles (nanoparticles) with typical length of the order of 1-50 nm, showed abnormal convective heat transfer enhancement, which is remarkable.Originality/valueThe major novelty of the present work corresponds to utilization of a magnetite nanofluid (Fe3O4–water nanofluid) in a stagnation flow influenced by chemical reaction and magnetic field. It should be noted that in addition to a variable chemical reaction, the permeability is non-uniform, while the imposed magnetic field also varies along the sheet. These, all, make the present work rather original.