Heat transfer in a liquid film over an unsteady stretching surface with viscous dissipation in presence of external magnetic field

This paper presents a mathematical analysis of MHD flow and heat transfer to a laminar liquid film from a horizontal stretching surface. The flow of a thin fluid film and subsequent heat transfer from the stretching surface is investigated with the aid of similarity transformation. The transformation enables to reduce the unsteady boundary layer equations to a system of non-linear ordinary differential equations. Numerical solution of resulting non-linear differential equations is found by using efficient shooting technique. Boundary layer thickness is explored numerically for some typical values of the unsteadiness parameter S and Prandtl number Pr, Eckert number Ec and Magnetic parameter Mn. Present analysis shows that the combined effect of magnetic field and viscous dissipation is to enhance the thermal boundary layer thickness. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.