Study of gyrotactic microorganism with activation energy and thermal radiation on horizontal porous plate under variable wall temperature: Sensitivity analysis

Abstract

Heat and mass transfer phenomena are essential in many engineering technologies, e.g. in the process engineering, energy systems, and the biomedical engineering. These processes largely determine the effectiveness and efficiency of systems related to fluid flow, heat exchange, and mass transfer. This research represents a study of two-dimensional flow, heat, and mass transfer characteristics of microorganism-laden fluid with regards to activation energy and variable wall temperature. The relevant mathematical model was developed, incorporating the effects of activation energy, thermal radiation, and the influence of gyrotactic microorganisms in the non-Newtonian fluid. The method of solution involves the numerical solution of the system of the corresponding partial differential equations using BVP4C method in MATLAB. The numerical values are then used to perform sensitivity analysis of different input parameters against output responses. The residual plots are portrayed to show the validation of developed correlations then perform sensitivity analysis and concluded that, the increase of activation energy as well as Bioconvection parameter is beneficial for the increasing intensity of heat and mass transfer rates. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the reduced Nusselt and Sherwood numbers of Prandtl and Schmidt numbers are crucial factors determining the qualitative and quantitative eventual system efficiency. The above-mentioned conclusions are highly relevant for the industrial applications of the results, primarily for those with an increased focus on the optimization of the heat and mass transfer process efficiency.