Effects of Pressure Gradient on Convective Heat Transfer in a Boundary Layer Flow of a Maxwell Fluid Past a Stretching Sheet

Abstract

Abstract The pressure gradient term plays a vital role in convective heat transfer in the boundary layer flow of a Maxwell fluid over a stretching sheet. The importance of the effects of the term can be monitored by developing Maxwell’s equation of momentum and energy with the pressure gradient term. To achieve this goal, an approximation technique, i.e. Homotopy Perturbation Method (HPM) is employed with an application of algorithms of Adams Method (AM) and Gear Method (GM). With this approximation method we can study the effects of the pressure gradient (m), Deborah number (β), the ratio of the free stream velocity parameter to the stretching sheet parameter (ɛ) and Prandtl number (Pr) on both the momentum and thermal boundary layer thicknesses. The results have been compared in the absence and presence of the pressure gradient term m . It has an impact of thinning of the momentum and boundary layer thickness for non-zero values of the pressure gradient. The convergence of the system has been taken into account for the stretching sheet parameter ɛ. The result of the system indicates the significant thinning of the momentum and thermal boundary layer thickness in velocity and temperature profiles. On the other hand, some results show negative values of f (η) and θ (η) which indicates the case of fluid cooling.