EFFECT OF VARIABLE VISCOSITY AND THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY ON UNSTEADY FREE CONVECTIVE FLOW OF A MICROPOLAR FLUID PAST A VERTICAL CONE

A numerical investigation of the effects of variable viscosity and thermal conductivity on an unsteady free convective MHD fl ow of a micropolar fl uid past a vertical cone with variable heat fl ux, viscous dissipation, and Joule dissipation is carried out. The fl uid viscosity and thermal conductivity are modeled by inverse linear functions of temperature. The governing partial differential equations are reduced to nondimensional ones, which are discretized using an effi cient and unconditionally stable implicit fi nite difference method of the Crank–Nicolson type and solved for prescribed boundary conditions by an iterative scheme based on the Gauss–Seidel method. Numerical results are presented for the velocity, temperature, and microrotation rate profi les. The values of the skin friction and Nusselt number for various combinations of parameters are given
   
Author:  G. C. Hazarika, Bandita Phukan, and Sahin Ahmed
Keywords:  magnetohydrodynamic fl ow, viscosity, thermal conductivity, micropolar fl uid, Crank–Nicolson implicit method, microrotation
Page:  178