Entropy analysis of convective MHD flow of third grade non-Newtonian fluid over a stretching sheet

The purpose of this article is to study and analyze the convective flow of a third grade non-Newtonian fluid due to a linearly stretching sheet subject to a magnetic field. The dimensionless entropy generation equation is obtained by solving the reduced momentum and energy equations. The momentum and energy equations are reduced to a system of ordinary differential equations by a similarity method. The optimal homotopy analysis method (OHAM) is used to solve the resulting system of ordinary differential equations. The effects of the magnetic field, Biot number and Prandtl number on the velocity component and temperature are studied. The results show that the thermal boundary-layer thickness gets decreased with increasing the Prandtl number. In addition, Brownian motion plays an important role to improve thermal conductivity of the fluid. The main purpose of the paper is to study the effects of Reynolds number, dimensionless temperature difference, Brinkman number, Hartmann number and other physical parameters on the entropy generation. These results are analyzed and discussed. (C) 2015 Ain Shams University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.