Mixed convection boundary layer flow of a nanofluid past a vertical plate in a doubly stratified porous medium

Abstract

The effect of thermal and mass stratification on mixed convection boundary layer flow over a vertical flat plate embedded in a porous medium saturated by a nanofluid has been investigated. The vertical plate is maintained at uniform and constant heat, mass and nanoparticle fluxes, and the behavior of the porous medium is described by the Darcy model. The model considered for nanofluids incorporates the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis. In addition, the thermal energy equations include regular diffusion and cross-diffusion terms. A suitable coordinate transformation is introduced, and the obtained system of non-similar, coupled and non-linear partial differential equations is solved numerically. The influence of pertinent parameters on the non-dimensional velocity, temperature, concentration and nanoparticle volume fraction are discussed. In addition, the variation of heat, mass and nanoparticle transfer rates at the plate are exhibited graphically for different values of physical parameters.