Soret and Dufour Effects on Transient Double Diffusive Free Convection of Couple-stress Fluid past a Vertical Cylinder

Abstract

This study examines the influence of Soret and Dufour effects on double diffusive transient free convective boundary layer flow of a couple-stress fluid flowing over a semi-infinite vertical cylinder. A set of non-dimensional governing equations namely, the continuity, momentum, energy and concentration equations is derived and these equations are unsteady non-linear and coupled. As there is no analytical or direct numerical method available to solve these equations, they are solved by using the CFD techniques. An unconditionally stable Crank-Nicolson type of implicit finite difference scheme is employed to obtain the discretized forms of governing equations. These equations are solved using the Thomas and pentadiagonal algorithms. The numerical results are compared and found to be in good agreement with previously published results as special cases of the present investigation. Transient velocity, temperature and concentration profiles, average skin-friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are shown graphically for different values of Soret (So) and Dufour (Du) numbers. In all these profiles it is observed that, as the values of So decreases or the Du increases, the time required to reach the temporal maximum and the steady-state increases. It is also observed that the average values of skin-friction and heat transfer rate increases with the increasing values of So or decreasing values of Du. Whereas the reverse trend is observed for the average mass transfer rate.