Hydromagnetic flow and heat transfer of a conducting Casson fluid in a rectangular channel

The transient hydromagnetic flow of an electrically conducting viscous incompressible non-Newtonian Casson fluid bounded by two parallel non-conducting plates is studied with heat transfer considering the Hall effect. An external uniform magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the plates and the fluid motion is subjected to a pressure gradient in the axial direction. The lower plate is stationary and the upper plate is suddenly set into motion and simultaneously suddenly isothermally heated to a temperature other than the lower plate temperature. Numerical solutions are obtained for the governing momentum and energy equations taking the Joule and viscous dissipations into consideration. The effect of the Hall term and the parameter describing the non-Newtonian behaviour on both the velocity and temperature distributions are studied. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.