The effect of thermophoresis on unsteady Oldroyd-B nanofluid flow over stretching surface

Abstract

There are currently only a few theoretical studies on convective heat transfer in polymer nanocomposites. In this paper, the unsteady incompressible flow of a polymer nanocompo-site represented by an Oldroyd-B nanofluid along a stretching sheet is investigated. Recent studies have assumed that the nanoparticle fraction can be actively controlled on the boundary, similar to the temperature. However, in practice, such control presents significant challenges and in this study the nanoparticle flux at the boundary surface is assumed to be zero. We have used a relatively novel numerical scheme; the spectral relaxation method to solve the momentum, heat and mass transport equations. The accuracy of the solutions has been determined by benchmarking the results against the quasilinearisation method. We have conducted a parametric study to determine the influence of the fluid parameters on the heat and mass transfer coefficients.