A Study of Non-Newtonian Flow and Heat Transfer over a Non-Isothermal Wedge Using the Homotopy Analysis Method

作者：Rashidi M M; Rastegari M T; Asadi M; Beg O Anwar^*

来源：Chemical Engineering Communications, 2012, 199(2): 231-256.

DOI：10.1080/00986445.2011.586756

• Boundary layers
• Heat transfer
• Homotopy analysis method (HAM)
• Polymer processing
• Similarity transformation
• Third-grade viscoelastic fluid
• Wedge

The thermoconvective boundary layer flow of a generalized third-grade viscoelastic power-law non-Newtonian fluid over a porous wedge is studied theoretically. The free stream velocity, the surface temperature variations, and the injection velocity at the surface are assumed variables. A similarity transformation is applied to reduce the governing partial differential equations for mass, momentum, and energy conservation to dimensionless, nonlinear, coupled, ordinary differential equations. The homotopy analysis method (HAM) is employed to generate approximate analytical solutions for the transformed nonlinear equations under the prescribed boundary conditions. The HAM solutions, in comparison with numerical solutions (fourth-order Runge-Kutta shooting quadrature), admit excellent accuracy. The residual errors for dimensionless velocity and dimensionless temperature are also computed. The influence of the "power-law'' index on flow characteristics is also studied. The mathematical model finds important applications in polymeric processing and biotechnological manufacture. HAM holds significant promise as an analytical tool for chemical engineering fluid dynamics researchers, providing a robust benchmark for conventional numerical methods.

• 出版日期2012