Numerical investigation of MHD impact on Maxwell nanofluid

Abstract

This study addresses the entropy generation in a magnetohydrodynamic flow of a Maxwell nanofluid over an infinite horizontal surface. The flow is then induced by the non-linear surface stretching. Furthermore, thermal radiation and viscous dissipation are also included in the present study as external sources. Similarity solutions are obtained by transformation of governing partial differential equations (PDEs) to ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using similarity variables. Keller box method is then adopted to find the approximate solutions of reduced ordinary differential equations. Two different classes of nanofluids, Copper-water (Cu − H2O) and Titanium-water (TiO2 − H2O) are considered for our analysis. Significant results of various parameters in flow, heat, Skin friction (Cf), Nusselt number (Nux), and entropy analysis are elaborated graphically. The remarkable finding of this work is that the thermal conductivity in Maxwell phenomena gradually increases as compared to the conventional fluid. The entropy of the system exaggerates with the incorporation of nanoparticle volume fraction ϕ, Reynolds number Re, Biot number Bi, Eckert number Ec, Brinkan number Bi and thermal radiation Nr. The sticking feature of the present study is that Cu-water based nanofluid is detected as a superior thermal conductor instead of TiO2-water based nanofluid.