Full Length Research Paper

Visco-elastic MHD flow of Walters liquid B fluid and heat transfer over a non-isothermal stretching sheet

Esmaiil Ghasemi, Mahmoud Bayat* and Mahdi Bayat

Department of Civil Engineering, Shirvan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shirvan, Iran.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: mbayat14@yahoo.com. Tel: +98 111 3234205.

Accepted 06 July, 2011.

Abstract

An analytic study has been carried on steady MHD flow and heat transfer in a visco-elastic fluid flow over a semi-infinite, impermeable and non-isothermal stretching sheet with internal heat generation/absorption in the presence of radiation. Thermal conductivity is assumed to vary linearly with temperature. The governing partial differential equations are converted into ordinary differential equations by a similarity transformation. These equations are solved by homotopy analysis method (HAM). The results are then compared with numerical ones which showed excellent agreement. The temperature profiles are shown graphically for different physical parameters.

Key words: Walters liquid B, stretching sheet, visco-elastic fluid, heat transfer, magneto hydrodynamics, HAM.