On Boundary Layer Flow and Heat Transfer to Burgers Fluid

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to furnish some theoretical results in the field of non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. The research presented in the thesis is concerned with the mathematical modeling and development of analytical solutions for non-Newtonian fluids. Particularly, this thesis focuses on the boundary layer flows of Burgers and generalized Burgers fluids induced by the stretching surface. Thus the theme of thesis is twofold. First, the development of the boundary layer equations for steady two- and three-dimensional flows of Burgers and generalized Burgers fluids. Second, to give a better understanding of their behaviors, the development of the analytical results for them in diverse circumstances. The problems considered here involve, the forced convective heat transfer over linear stretching surfaces by assuming different situations like nanofluid, Cattaneo-Christov heat and mass flux models, homogeneous-heterogeneous and melting processes. The modeled PDEs are transformed into ODEs by utilizing suitable transformations which are then solved by employing HAM. In the limiting cases, our solutions are in excellent agreement with previously reported results in the literature. To assess and demonstrate the physical aspects of our results, some of the velocity, 17 temperature and concentration profiles are presented graphically for emerging parameters and discussed in detail. Moreover, the local Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are presented in tabular form for a set of values of the non-dimensional parameters. A profound observation is that the velocity and associated momentum boundary layer thickness diminish with augmented values of the materials parameter 𝛽2 of Burgers fluid; however, quite the opposite is true in case of the material parameter 𝛽4 of generalized Burgers fluids. In addition, it is noticed that temperature and concentration profiles enhance as the material parameter 𝛽2 is incremented. It is further observed that the temperature and concentration distribution possess a reverse behavior for the material parameter 𝛽4 when compared with 𝛽2. Indeed this thesis leads us to suggest that the results owing from the Burgers and generalized Burgers models do provide a much improved understanding of their rheological characteristics.