Hydrodynamic Radiating Fluid Flow Past an Infinite Vertical Porous Plate in Presence of Chemical Reaction and Induced Magnetic Field

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.