Magneto-hydrodynamic mixed convection of a power-law fluid past a stretching surface in the presence of thermal radiation and internal heat generation/absorption

The problem of magneto-hydrodynamic mixed convective flow and heat transfer of an electrically conducting, power-law fluid past a stretching surface in the presence of heat generation/absorption and thermal radiation has been analyzed. After transforming the governing equations with suitable dimensionless variables, numerical solutions are generated by an implicit finite-difference technique for the non-similar, coupled flow. The solution is found to be dependent on the governing parameters including the power-law fluid index, the magnetic field parameter, the modified Richardson number, the radiation parameter, the heat generation parameter, and the generalized Prandtl number. To reveal the tendency of the solutions, typical results for the velocity and temperature profiles, the skin-friction coefficient, and the local Nusselt number are presented for different values of these controlling parameters. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.