Abstract:
An investigation of the unsteady magnetohydrodynamic fluid flow, heat and mass
transfer characteristic in a viscous, incompressible, electrically conducting and Newtonian
fluid past a vertical plate embedded in a porous medium taking into account
induced magnetic field, first order chemical reaction and thermal radiation effect was
carried out. The dimensionless governing, non-linear boundary layer partial differential
equations were solved by an efficient and unconditionally stable finite difference
scheme of the Crank-Nicholson type. A computer software is used to iteratively
solve the partial differential equations.The numerical solutions for fluid velocity, induced
magnetic field, species concentration and fluid temperature are depicted graphically.
The effect of various non-dimensional parameters on the fluid flow variables
are discussed and physical interpretation given. Hydromagnetic flows, heat transfer
and mass transfer have become more important in recent years because of its varied
applications in agricultural engineering, petroleum industries,magnetohydrodynamic
generators, plasma propulsion in astronautics, nuclear reactor thermal dynamics and
ionized-geothermal energy systems.
