Mixed convection over an inclined wavy surface embedded in a nanofluid saturated porous medium

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the mixed convection in a nanofluid along an inclined wavy surface embedded in a porous medium.

Design/methodology/approach

The complex wavy surface is transformed to a smooth surface by employing a coordinate transformation. Using the similarity transformation, the governing equations are transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations and then lineralized using the successive linearization method. The Chebyshev pseudo spectral method is then used to solve linearized differential equations.

Findings

The effects of Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter, amplitude of the wavy surface, angle of inclination of the wavy surface for aiding and opposing flows on the non-dimensional velocity, temperature, nanoparticle volume fraction, heat and nanoparticle mass transfer rates are studied and presented graphically.

Originality/value

This is the first instance in which mixed convection, inclined wavy surface and nanofluid is employed to model fluid flow.

Citation

Srinivasacharya , D. and Vijay Kumar, P. (2015), "Mixed convection over an inclined wavy surface embedded in a nanofluid saturated porous medium", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 25 No. 8, pp. 1774-1792. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-04-2014-0104