Numerical study of gyrotactic bioconvection in stretching flow of a variable viscosity nanofluid with buoyancy and power-law wall effects

Abstract

Modern aerospace is increasingly embracing bio-inspired designs. Intelligent coatings are being developed which amalgamate nanotechnological and also biological features including, bio-rheology, anti-corrosion/fouling features and strategic embedded of micro-organisms which respond to specific stimuli including light, heat, chemical concentration, electrical or magnetic fields. This article develops a mathematical model for steady, 2-D, incompressible laminar boundary layer flow and gyrotactic bioconvection in a variable viscosity nanofluid along a convectively heated stretched plate. The model is driven by the investigation of innovative bio-inspired nanocoatings. The behavior of nanoparticles and microorganisms, which is non-isothermal and non-isosolutal, has been taken into account. The Buongiorno two-component nanoscale model is employed which permits simultaneous mass and heat (nano-particle) transfer. A boundary layer framework is deployed. The transformed boundary value problem is solved numerically by using finite difference method with central differencing, tridiagonal matrix manipulation and Iterative algebraic solution procedure. Validation with former studies for selected special cases of the generalized model is conducted. Further validation of the general model solutions is achieved with a generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) algorithm. The major inspections of the current work are the flow is accelerated with greater viscosity parameter and bioconvection Rayleigh number. Future investigations will explore more complex non-Newtonian constitutive models.