MHD flow of radiative micropolar nanofluid in a porous channel: optimal and numerical solutions

Abstract

The flow of a radiative and electrically conducting micropolar nanofluid inside a porous channel is investigated. After implementing the similarity transformations, the partial differential equations representing the radiative flow are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations. The subsequent equations are solved by making use of a well-known analytical method called homotopy analysis method (HAM). The expressions concerning the velocity, microrotation, temperature, and nanoparticle concentration profiles are obtained. The radiation tends to drop the temperature profile for the fluid. The formulation for local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers is also presented. Tabular and graphical results highlighting the effects of different physical parameters are presented. Rate of heat transfer at the lower wall is seen to be increasing with higher values of the radiation parameter while a drop in heat transfer rate at the upper wall is observed. Same problem has been solved by implementing the numerical procedure called the Runge–Kutta method. A comparison between the HAM, numerical and already existing results has also been made.