Nanoparticles effects on MHD fluid flow over a stretching sheet with solar radiation: A numerical study

In this research, a numerical study on the solar radiation effect on the magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) nanofluid flow over a stretching plate is performed. A different application of Rosseland approximation for thermal radiation is introduced in this study and Keller-Box numerical method is applied to solve the problem. An excellent agreement was found between our calculated results and those obtained by Mushtaq et al using Runge-Kutta method. Also, the influences of different parameters such as magnetic field, local radiation, Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameters as well as Eckert, Lewis and Biot numbers are explained through graphs for velocity, temperature and nanoparticles concentration. As a main outcome, our results show that, regardless of the selected value of radiation parameter R-d, the temperature increases as the Brownian motion and thermophoretic effects are simultaneously increased. Furthermore, the nanoparticles volume fraction is found to decrease upon increasing the Brownian motion parameter. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.