Analytical study of heat and mass transfer in unsteady MHD radiant flow of Williamson nanofluid over stretching sheet with heat generation and chemical reaction

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the analytical study of heat and mass transfer in a two‐dimensional time‐dependent flow of Williamson nanofluid near a permeable stretching sheet by considering the effects of external magnetic field, viscous dissipation, Joule heating, thermal radiation, heat source, and chemical reaction. Suitable transformations are introduced to reformulate the governing equations and the boundary conditions convenient for computation. The resulting sets of nonlinear differential equations are then solved by the homotopy analysis method. The study on the effects of relevant parameters on fluid velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles is analyzed and presented in graphical and tabular forms. Upon comparison of the present study with respect to some other previous studies, a very good agreement is obtained. The study points out that the transfer of heat can substantially be enhanced by decreasing viscoelasticity of the fluid and the transfer of mass can be facilitated by increasing permeability of the stretching sheet.