The Hall Effect on the Magnetohydrodynamic Flow near a Stagnation Point

Abstract

In order to see the qualitative properties of the Hall effect in the magnetohydrodynamic flow past a body at large magnetic Reynolds number R m and large Reynolds number R e , the steady, incompressible flow near a two-dimensional stagnation point is studied on the assumption that a magnetic field is parallel to the velocity at infinity upstream and normal to the surface of the wall which is an insulator. For small values of the Hall parameter and pressure number series solutions are derived and the formulae for the local skin friction are obtained for R m / R e ≪1, =1, ≫1. It is shown that the component of the skin friction, which is normal to the flow direction at infinity upstream, is positive or negative according as R m / R e ≫1 or ≪1, and the Hall effect produces little change in the skin friction for \(R_{m}/R_{e}{\fallingdotseq}1\).