Heat and Mass Transfer Effects on Unsteady MHD Radiative Flow of a Chemically Reacting Fluid Past an Impulsively Started Vertical Plate

Abstract

The interaction of free convection with thermal radiation of viscous in- compressible MHD unsteady chemical reacting fluid flow past an impulsively started vertical plate is analyzed. The Rosseland approximation is used to describe the ra- diative heat transfer in the limit of the optically thin fluid. The non-linear, coupled equations are solved using an implicit finite difference scheme of Crank-Nicolson type. Velocity, temperature and concentration of the flow have been presented for various parameters such as thermal Grashof number, mass Grashof number, Prandtl number, Schmidt number, radiation parameter and magnetic parameter. The local and average skin friction, Nusslet number and Sherwood number are also presented graphically. It is observed that, when the radiation parameter increases the velocity and temperature decrease in the boundary layer. Also, it is found that the presence of chemical reac- tion parameter leads to decrease in the velocity field and concentration and rise in the thermal boundary thickness. Keywords : Heat transfer; MHD; Radiation; Finite-difference Scheme; Vertical plate 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification 74A15