Williamson nanofluid flow over a stretching sheet with varied wall thickness and slip effects

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of slip parameters and velocity power index parameter along with wall thickness on the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) boundary layer flow of a Williamson nanofluid through a stretching sheet in porous medium. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using the relevant similarity variables. These nonlinear ODEs are solved numerically using the Runge-Kutta Fehlberg in MAPLE software. The effects of the pertinent parameters on the velocity, temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction profiles are presented graphically. The impact of the physical parameters on the skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number and the local Sherwood number are computed and analyzed. The velocity profile increases when the velocity slip parameter increases. The temperature slip and nanoparticle fraction slip parameters reduce the temperature and the nanoparticle volume fraction profiles respectively. The temperature and the nanoparticle volume fraction profiles significantly increase due to the increase in the velocity power index. An opposite behaviour is observed on different values of the wall thickness parameter when the power index is less than one compared to greater than one.