Radiative Heat and Mass Transfer of an MHD Free Convective Flow of Non-Newtonian Power-Law Fluids Along a Continuously Moving Stretching Sheet with Uniform Surface Heat Flux

Abstract

An analysis is carried out to study the effects of MHD free convection heat and mass transfer of power-law non-Newtonian fluids along a stretching sheet with thermal radiation. This has been done under the simultaneous action of suction, thermal radiation and uniform transverse magnetic field. The stretching sheet is assumed to continuously moving with a power-law velocity and maintaining a uniform surface heat flux. The governing non–linear partial differential equations governing the flow field for heat and mass transfer problem are transformed into non–linear ordinary differential equations, using similarity transformation, and the resulting problem is solved numerically using Nachtsheim-Swigert shooting iteration technique along with sixth order Runge-Kutta integration scheme. The results from numerical computations have been presented in the from of dimensionless velocity, temperature and concentration profiles, shown graphically and discussed. A parametric study illustrating the influence of the flow field to radiation, buoyancy force, power-law fluid velocity index, Schmidt number, suction or injection parameter and uniform transverse magnetic field on the local skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number and the Sherwood number which are of physical and engineering interest are studied and the obtained results are shown graphically and the physical aspects of the problem are discussed. A comparison of the present study is also performed with the previously published work and found excellent agreement.