HOMOTOPY STUDY OF BUOYANCY-INDUCED FLOW OF NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS OVER A NON-ISOTHERMAL SURFACE IN A POROUS MEDIUM

In this study, the steady buoyancy-induced thermal convection boundary layer flow of a non-Newtonian fluid over a non-isothermal horizontal flat plate immersed in a porous medium is examined by employing the general similarity transformation procedure and the power law model to characterize the non-Newtonian fluid behaviour. Temperature profiles and the heat transfer rate at the wall are presented for different values of the non-Newtonian power law index (n) and the exponent associated with the wall temperature distribution (A). The similarity transformation is applied to reduce the governing nonlinear coupled partial differential equations to nonlinear ordinary differential equations in dimensionless form. The robust Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM), is applied to obtain approximate analytical solutions of the dimensionless nonlinear equations. The obtained solutions demonstrate very high accuracy and excellent agreement with numerical solutions (fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme).

Homotopy analysis method; Similarity transformation; Non-Newtonian flow; Thermal Convection; modified Rayleigh number; Nusselt number; Industrial processes.