Heat transfer and fluid flow of a non-Newtonian nanofluid over an unsteady contracting cylinder employing Buongiorno’s model

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a combined similarity-numerical approach that is used to study the unsteady two-dimensional flow of a non-Newtonian nanofluid over a contracting cylinder using Buongiorno’s model and the Casson fluid model that is used to characterize the non-Newtonian fluid behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

Similarity transformations are employed to transform the unsteady Navier-Stokes partial differential equations into a system of ordinary differential equations. The transformed equations are then solved numerically by means of the very robust symbolic computer algebra software MATLAB employing the routine bvpc45.

Findings

The effect of increasing values of the Casson parameter is to suppress the velocity field (in absolute sense), the temperature and concentration decrease as Casson parameter increase. The heat and mass transfer rates decrease with the increase of unsteadiness parameters and Brownian motion parameter. In addition, they increase as the Casson parameter and the thermophoresis parameter increase.

Originality/value

The problem is relatively original and represents a very important contribution to the field of non-Newtonian nanofluids.

Citation

Mahdy, A. and Chamkha, A. (2015), "Heat transfer and fluid flow of a non-Newtonian nanofluid over an unsteady contracting cylinder employing Buongiorno’s model", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 703-723. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-04-2014-0093