Abstract
The problem of magneto-hydrodynamic flow and heat transfer of an electrically conducting non-Newtonian power-law fluid past a non-linearly stretching surface in the presence of a transverse magnetic field is considered. The stretching velocity, the temperature and the transverse magnetic field are assumed to vary in a power-law with the distance from the origin. The flow is induced due to an infinite elastic sheet which is stretched in its own plane. The governing equations are reduced to non-linear ordinary differential equations by means of similarity transformations. These equations are then solved numerically by an implicit finite-difference scheme known as Keller-Box method. The numerical solution is found to be dependent on several governing parameters, including the magnetic field parameter, power-law index, velocity exponent parameter, temperature exponent parameter, Modified Prandtl number and heat source/sink parameter. A systematic study is carried out to illustrate the effects of these parameters on the fluid velocity and the temperature distribution in the boundary layer. The results for the local skin-friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number are tabulated and discussed. The results obtained reveal many interesting behaviors that warrant further study on the equations related to non-Newtonian fluid phenomena.
Highlights
During the past four decades the study of non-Newtonian fluids has gained interest because of their numerous technological applications, including manufacturing of plastic sheets, performance of lubricants, and movement of biological fluids
Reference [14] studied viscous flow and heat transfer over a nonlinearly stretching sheet. Motivated by these analyses and practical applications, the main concern of the present paper is to study the effect of variable thermal conductivity on the power-law fluid flow and heat transfer over a non-linearly stretching sheet in the presence of a transverse magnetic field
In view of the present physical situation we have considered steady laminar two-dimensional boundary layer flow due to a stretching sheet in a quiescent viscous incompressible and electrically conducting fluid obeying power-law model in the presence of a transverse magnetic field B0
Summary
During the past four decades the study of non-Newtonian fluids has gained interest because of their numerous technological applications, including manufacturing of plastic sheets, performance of lubricants, and movement of biological fluids. The flow of an incompressible non-Newtonian fluid over a stretching sheet has several industrial applications in, for example, extrusion of a polymer sheet from a dye or in the drawing of plastic films. In view of their differences with Newtonian fluids, several models of non-Newtonian fluids have been proposed. Amongst these the simplest and the most common model is the power-law fluid, which has received special attraction from the researchers in the field.
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