Stability analysis in the transient flow of Carreau fluid with non-linear radiative heat transfer and nanomaterials: Critical points

Abstract

In recent times, the heat transfer characteristics during the flow of nanofluids are an important topic form industrial and technological point of view. The presence of these very fine nanoparticles of size 1–100 nm in the base fluids corresponds to a new phenomenon of heat and particle transfer, which highly enhance the thermal conductivity of these fluids. A comprehensive investigation on axisymmetric flow of a Carreau nanofluid driven by a radially shrinking geometry is conducted. We have further taken the impacts of thermal radiation and magnetic field. The considered problem comprises of continuity, momentum, energy and concentration equations. A finite difference based numerical technique, called bvp4c routine is implemented for numerical computations of reduced system of differential equations. The numerical results for physical quantities, such as, skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number, velocity, temperature and concentration are demonstrated for varying estimations of involved physical parameters. The ongoing study shows that multiple branches (first and second) of solutions occur for a certain range of physical parameters. Moreover, the stability analysis is done to identify which of these solutions is stable and physically realizable and which is not. According to the computed results, the existence range of dual solution is significantly being raised by higher magnetic parameter.