Steady Homann flow and heat transfer of an electrically conducting second grade fluid

Abstract

The steady axisymmetric flow and heat transfer of an incompressible, electrically conducting non-Newtonian second grade fluid impinging on a flat plate is investigated. An external uniform, transverse magnetic field is applied at the surface of the plate. Similarity transformation is used to reduce the resulting highly nonlinear partial differential equations into ordinary differential equations. An effective numerical scheme has been adopted to solve the nonlinear ordinary differential equations. The effects of non-Newtonian flow parameters and the magnetic field on the momentum and thermal boundary layers are discussed in detail and shown graphically. It is interesting to find that the non-Newtonian parameter and the magnetic parameter have opposite effects on the momentum and thermal boundary layers. The skin friction coefficient decreases exponentially with an increase in the non-Newtonian viscoelastic parameter and increases linearly with an increase in the magnetic parameter. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.