Effects of Heat Transport Characteristics and Chemical Reaction in Unsteady Flow of Williamson Fluid and Entropy Generation: The Keller-Box Numerical Scheme

Abstract

The study of heat and mass transport in non-Newtonian fluid flow over a stretching surface accompanying relevant characteristics is important in several engineering and industrial processes like annealing and thinning of copper wires, aerodynamic extrusion of plastic and rubber sheet, glass fiber, and so forth. Based on significant practical applications, the objective of this investigation is to assess the time-dependent flow of Williamson fluid influenced by porous sheet stretching in exponential manner accompanied by thermal and mass transport and entropy generation. Various factors affecting fluid flow, thermal and mass transport (viscous dissipation, non-linear radiation, porous media, chemical reaction, and heat source) are considered. The regulating PDEs are turned into ODEs in nondimensional form utilizing adequate similarity transformation relations. The problem is solved numerically on MATLAB adopting the Keller-Box scheme. On fluid flow, temperature, and concentration distribution the effects of relevant parameters are depicted by drawing sketches and discussed. Besides, second law analysis is also evoked in the study in terms of entropy generation accompanying the Bejan number. Moreover, quantities of physical significance such as skin friction coefficient, Sherwood number, and Nusselt number are computed, compared with prior research and found in excellent agreement. It is concluded that temperature profile magnifies due to radiation and heat generation effects. The reaction coefficient and order of the reaction exhibited opposite effects on concentration profile. It is also concluded that entropy production reduces with increasing slips and temperature difference parameter, while opposite effect is observed due to Brinkman number. Furthermore, it is observed that skin-friction coefficient at the surface decreases with velocity slip and non-Newtonian parameter however, trend is reversed due to unsteadiness parameter. The results of the study may find applications of practical importance in engineering fields such as designing heat exchangers, cooling processes, improving energy storage systems, and so forth.