Flow and heat transfer over a moving surface with nonlinear velocity and variable thickness in a nanofluid in the presence of thermal radiation

Abstract

We investigate the flow and heat transfer in nanofluids over a continuous variable thickness surface subjected to nonlinear velocity and thermal radiation. Three types of nanofluids, namely Cu, Ag, and Al2O 3 were studied. A similarity transformation was used to obtain a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, which was solved numerically for general conditions. Numerical results were obtained for the skin friction, Nusselt number as well as for the velocity and temperature for selected values of the governing parameters, such as nanoparticle volume friction, surface thickness parameter, velocity power index parameter, and radiation parameter. A comparison of obtained numerical results is made with previously published results in some special cases, and found to be in a good agreement. © 2013 Published by NRC Research Press.