Non-Newtonian magnetic nanofluid flow with activation energy: Updated nanofluid model

Abstract

The study of the stagnation flow of magnetic nanofluids is an appealing topic of research with various applications in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machinery, rotatory seals in hard drives, and the polymer industry. The presence of some kind of chemical reaction in the chemical species makes it essential to measure the activation energy effects on the mass transfer of the magnetic nanofluids. The current study presents a novel idea of examining the activation energy effects on the flow field of a tangent hyperbolic ferrofluid that is driven by a quadratically stretchy sheet. The updated non-homogeneous nanofluid model of Buongiorno is adopted to emphasize the non-Newtonian aspects of the nanoparticle sliding processes. The Kelvin body forces are produced by a magnetic source dipole at a set distance away from the sheet. Additionally, the equation of energy is modified by the thermophoretic heat diffusion caused by the magnetic dipole. The mathematical model is transformed to a set of connected non-linear ODEs with the application of relevant dimension-free variables and tackled numerically using the bvp4c algorithm. According to the graphical display, the velocity profiles are elevated with the power law index (n) in the vicinity of ( 0 ≤ Y ≤ 0.7 ). However, above this area, an inflection point in the velocity profiles causes the velocity to decrease with n. The skin friction is hampered with activation energy ( E * ), whereas the heat transfer rate is augmented with it. The rate of mass is augmented with the quadratic stretching parameter (B).