A numerical study of heat and mass transfer in non-Newtonian nanofluid models.

Abstract

A theoretical study of boundary layer flow, heat and mass transport in non-Newtonian nanofluids is presented. Because of the diversity in the physical structure and properties of non-Newtonian fluids, it is not possible to describe their behaviour using a single constitutive model. In the literature, several constitutive models have been proposed to predict the behaviour and rheological properties of non-Newtonian fluids. The question of interest is how the fluid physical parameters affect the boundary layer flow, and heat and mass transfer in various nanofluids. In this thesis, nanofluid models in various geometries and subject to different boundary conditions are constructed and analyzed. A range of fluid models from simple to complex are studied, leading to highly nonlinear and coupled differential equations, which require advanced numerical methods for their solution. This thesis is a conjoin between mathematical modeling of non-Newtonian nanofluid flows and numerical methods for solving differential equations. Some recent spectral techniques for finding numerical solutions of nonlinear systems of differential equations that model fluid flow problems are used. The numerical methods of primary interest are spectral quasilinearization, local linearization and bivariate local linearization methods. Consequently, one of the objectives of this thesis is to test the accuracy, robustness and general validity of these methods. The dependency of heat and mass transfer, and skin friction coefficients on the physical parameters is quantified and discussed. Results show that nanofluids and physical parameters have an important and significant impact on boundary layer flows, and on heat and mass transfer processes.