A new numerical approach to MHD flow of a Maxwell fluid past a vertical stretching sheet in the presence of Thermophoresis and chemical reaction

Abstract

In this study we consider steady MHD flow of a Maxwell fluid past a vertical stretching sheet in a Darcian porous medium. The motion of the fluid is caused by the stretched sheet. The governing boundary layer equations for momentum, thermal energy and concentration are reduced using a similarity transformation to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations. The similarity ordinary differential equations are then solved numerically by a recently developed spectral relaxation method together with the Chebyshev pseudo-spectral collocation method. Effects of the physicalparameters on the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles as well as the local skin friction coefficient and the heat and mass transfer rates are depicted graphically and/or in tabular form. MSC: 65Pxx; 76-XX © 2013 Shateyi; licensee Springer.