Existence and uniqueness results for a nonlinear differential equation arising in viscous flow over a nonlinearly stretching sheet

We establish the existence and uniqueness results for a class of nonlinear third order ordinary differential equations arising in the viscous flow over a nonlinearly stretching sheet. In particular, we consider solutions over the semi-infinite interval [0, infinity). These results generalize the results of Vajravelu and Cannon [K. Vajravelu, J.R. Cannon, Applied Mathematics and Computation 181 (2006) 609], where they considered the finite interval [0, R]. Also in this paper, we answer their open question of finding the existence and uniqueness results for the problem over the semi-infinite domain and discuss the properties of the solution. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.