Numerical study of Carreau nanofluid flow past vertical plate with the Cattaneo-Christov heat flux model

Purpose To achieve material-invariant formulation for heat transfer of Carreau nanofluid, the effect of Cattaneo-Christov heat flux is studied on a natural convective flow of Carreau nanofluid past a vertical plate with the periodic variations of surface temperature and the concentration of species. Buongiorno model is considered for nanofluid transport, which includes the relative slip mechanisms, Brownian motion and thermophoresis. Design/methodology/approach The governing equations are non-dimensionalized using suitable transformations, further reduced to non-similar form using stream function formulation and solved by local non-similarity method with homotopy analysis method. The numerical computations are validated and verified by comparing with earlier published results and are found to be in good agreement. Findings The effects of varying the physical parameters such as Prandtl number, Schmidt number, Weissenberg number, thermophoresis parameter, Brownian motion parameter and buoyancy ratio parameter on velocity, temperature and species concentration are discussed and presented through graphs. The results explored that the velocity of shear thinning fluid is raised by increasing the Weissenberg number, while contrary response is seen for the shear thickening fluid. It is also found that heat transfer in Cattaneo-Christov heat conduction model is less than that in Fourier's heat conduction model. Furthermore, the temperature and thermal boundary layer thickness expand with the increase in thermophoresis and Brownian motion parameter, whereas nanoparticle volume fraction increases with increase in thermophoresis parameter, but reverse trend is observed with increase in Brownian motion parameter. Originality/value The present investigation is relatively original as very little research has been reported on Carreau nanofluids under the effect of Cattaneo-Christov heat flux model.