Effects of periodic magnetic field on 2D transient optically dense gray nanofluid over a vertical plate : a computational EFDM study with SCA

Naturally convective periodic MHD and thermally radiative nanofluid flow through a vertical plate has been studied. The flow model has been established by incorporating the boundary layer approximations. Briefly, the governing equations in partial differential equations (PDEs) form were first transformed into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODEs) by using non-similar technique. After that, an explicit finite difference method (EFDM) was employed by implementing an algorithm in Compaq Visual Fortran 6.6a to solve the obtained set of nonlinear coupled ODEs. A stability and convergence analysis (SCA) was carried out to optimize the system parameter and accuracy of the system. From SCA, it was observed that at initial boundary conditions, U= V= T= C= 0 and for Δτ=0.005, ΔX=0.033 and ΔY=0.20, the system converged at Prandtl number, Pr≥0.3167 and Lewis number, Le≥0.16. The velocity, temperature and concentration flow are investigated and shown graphically with the effect of system parameters such as Grashof number (Gr), modified Grashof number (Gc), magnetic parameter (M), Prandtl number (Pr), thermal radiation (R), Eckert number (Ec), Brownian parameter (Nb), thermophoresis parameter (Nt) and Lewis number (Le). Furthermore, the effect of system parameters on skin friction coefficient (τx), Nusselt number (Nu) and Sherwood number (Sh) is also examined and tabularized. An acceptable approximation is obtained while comparing present computational approach with previous studies.