Abstract

This paper discusses numerically the unsteady flow and heat transfer of a viscous fluid driven by an impulsively started infinite flat plate in a nanofluid. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into a system of ordinary differential equations, which is then solved numerically by a shooting method. Results are presented graphically and the effects of the Brownian motion parameter Nb and the thermophoresis parameter Nt on the dimensionless heat transfer rate are discussed. It is found that the heat transfer rate is a decreasing function of both Nb and Nt.

Keywords: Heat transfer, nanofluid, Stokes’s first problem, unsteady flow.

Graphical Abstract