Swirling flow of Maxwell nanofluid between two coaxially rotating disks with variable thermal conductivity

Abstract

The main concern of this article is to study the Maxwell nanofluid flow between two coaxially parallel stretchable rotating disks subject to axial magnetic field. The heat transfer process is studied with the characteristics of temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. The Brownian motion and thermophoresis features due to nanofluids are captured with the Buongiorno model. The upper and lower disks rotating with different velocities are discussed for the case of same as well as opposite direction of rotations. The von Kármán transformations procedure is implemented to obtain the set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations involving momentum, energy and concentration equations. A built-in numerical scheme bvp4c is executed to obtain the solution of governing nonlinear problem. The graphical and tabular features of velocity, pressure, temperature and concentration fields are demonstrated against the influential parameters including magnetic number, stretching parameters, Deborah number, Reynolds number, Prandtl number, thermal conductivity parameter, thermophoresis and Brownian motion parameters. The significant outcomes reveal that stretching action causes to reverse the flow behavior. It is noted that the effect of Deborah number is to reduce the velocity and pressure fields. Further, the impact of thermophoresis and thermal conductivity parameters is to increase the temperature profile. Moreover, the fluid concentration is reduced with the stronger action of Schmidt number.