Flow and heat transfer of a nanofluid through a porous medium due to stretching/shrinking sheet with suction, magnetic field and thermal radiation

Abstract

This study investigates the suction and magnetic field effects on the two-dimensional nanofluid flow through a stretching/shrinking sheet at the stagnation point in the porous medium with thermal radiation. The governing partial differential equations (PDEs) are converted into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using the similarity transformation. The resulting ODEs are then solved numerically by using the bvp4c solver in MATLAB software. It was found that dual solutions exist for the shrinking parameter values up to a certain range. The numerical results obtained are compared, and the comparison showed a good agreement with the existing results in the literature. The governing parameters’ effect on the velocity, temperature and nanoparticle fraction fields as well as the skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number and the Sherwood number are represented graphically and analyzed. The variation of the velocity, temperature and concentration increase with the increase in the suction and magnetic field parameters. It seems that the thermal radiation effect has increased the local Sherwood number while the local Nusselt number is reduced with it.