Nonlinear thermal convection in a viscoelastic nanofluid saturated porous medium under gravity modulation

Abstract

Abstract This paper carried out a nonlinear thermal convection in a porous medium saturated with viscoelastic nanofluid under vibrations. The Darcy model has been used for the porous medium, while the nanofluid layer incorporates the effect of Brownian motion along with thermophoresis. An Oldroyd-B type constitutive equation was used to describe the rheological behavior of viscoelastic nanofluids. The non-uniform vertical vibrations of the system, which can be realized by oscillating the system vertically, is considered to vary sinusoidally with time. In order to find the heat and mass transports for unsteady state, a nonlinear analysis, using a minimal representation of the truncated Fourier series of two terms, has been performed. Effect of various parameters has been investigated on heat and mass transport and then presented graphically. It is found that gravity modulation can be used effectively to regulate either heat or mass transports in the system.