Study of MHD Flow of a Radiating Williamson Fluid Past a Non-linear Stretching Sheet

Abstract

This work examines the influence of a heat source/sink and dissipation on the MHD laminar flow of Williamson fluid over a nonlinear elastic sheet in a porous medium. The effects of non-linear radiation and Joule heating are also considered. The fluid's conductivity and viscosity are assumed to vary with temperature, enabling the study of heat and mass transfer phenomena. Suitable similarity variables are employed to transfer the resultant system of PDEs into a system of non-linear ODEs. The system is numerically solved utilizing the shooting approach in combination with the 4^th-order Runge-Kutta method in MATLAB. The findings are validated through comparison with prior research, demonstrating a high level of agreement. The influence of various flow parameters on heat distribution and the flow field is analyzed and illustrated through diagrams. Additionally, the friction coefficient and Nusselt number are computed numerically for a range of selected parameters and presented in tables. Key findings reveal that the velocity profile decreases with an increase in the viscosity parameter, while temperature rises with a higher viscosity parameter. Moreover, the Nusselt number decreases with an increase in the Williamson, viscosity, and Eckert parameters, while it increased with the suction parameter. The findings may have significant applications in various industrial and scientific fields, particularly in paints and coating, oil drilling, and blood circulation.