Free convection flow past an impermeable wedge embedded in nanofluid saturated porous medium with variable viscosity base fluid

Abstract

The paper investigates a free convection flow past an impermeable wedge embedded in nanofluid saturated porous medium. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into a set of non-linear ordinary differential equations with the help of self-similarity technique and solved using standard numerical techniques. The numerical results for the dimensionless velocity, temperature and nanoparticles volume fraction as well as the reduced Nusselt and Sherwood numbers have been analyzed and presented for various parameters, namely, viscous dissipation parameter σ, buoyancy ratio Nr, variable viscosity parameter θe, Brownian motion parameter Nb, thermophoresis parameter Nt, Lewis number Le and the angle of the wedge Ω. The results obtained shows that the Brownian motion, thermophoresis effects, buoyancy ratio and Lewis number significantly enhance the heat and mass transfer properties from the wall of the wedge to the fluid saturated porous medium.