Ali Alhamaly

ME 536 Report 1
Boundary Layer Flow of a Nanofluid past a
Stretching Sheet

1. Introduction
In this report, the fluid flow over linearly stretching flat sheet of a nanofluid is investigated.
The report is mainly reproduction of the analysis and results found in [1]. The main objective is to
investigate the fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer in the boundary layer of a fluid with
nanoparticles impeded in it.
The flow situation is considered as two dimensional boundary layer flow of a nanofluid
over a linearly stretching flat plat. The velocity of the flat plate is = where is a parameter
that signifies the rate of stretching of the flat plate. is the streamwise coordinate measured from
the center of the plate where its velocity is zero. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the geometry
considered.

Figure 1. Geometry of the problem taken from Fig. 1 In Ref [1].

1

The stretching flat plate is at temperature which is not known a priori. Instead, is the
result of a convective heat transfer process from below. This convection process is characterized
by a fluid temperature and a heat transfer coefficient . The temperature of the fluid far away
from the plate is . The nanoparticle volume fraction at the flat plate is while at far vertical
distant form the plate the volume fraction is .

2. Mathematical Model
The governing equations for the problem described in the last sections are: continuity,
momentum, energy, and concentration. These equations are reduced for the case of two
dimensional laminar boundary layer to give [1]:

+
=0

(1)

+
=

(2)

2

2

+
=
+ { (
)+
(( ) )}

(3)

2 2

+
=
+
(
)

2 2

(4)

where and are the velocity components along the and directions, respectively, is the
kinematic viscosity of the base fluid, is the thermal diffusivity of the base fluid, =
( ) /( ) is the ratio of nanoparticle heat capacity to the base fluid heat capacity, is the
Brownian diffusion coefficient, is the thermophoretic diffusion, is the fluid temperature,
and is the nanopartilces volume fraction.

The boundary conditions for the equations 1-4 is given by:

@=0,

= ,

= 0,

= 0,

= 0,

= ( ),

= ,

(5)

(6)

The system of equations 1-4 with the boundary conditions 5, 6 permit similarity
transformation. Exploiting this fact we define the following dimensionless quantities:

= ,

() =

() =

() =

(7)

Using the similarities variables in Eq.7, Equations 1-4 becomes:

+ = 0

(8)

+ + + = 0

+ +

(9)

=0

(10)

The boundary conditions in Equations 5 and 6 can be transformed to:

@ =0,

= 0,

= 0,

= 0,

= [1 ],

= 0,

=0

=1

(11)

(12)

The dimensionless parameters appearing in Equations 9-11 are given by:

( )
,

1
2
()
=

( )
,

(13)

Where is the Prandtl number, is the Lewis number, is Brownian motion parameter,
is thermophoresis parameter, and is the Biot number.

3. Solution Method
Equations 8-10 subjected to the boundary conditions given in Equations 11,12 were solved
numerically using MATLAB built in function bvp5c. It is worth to notice that Eq. 8 with
corresponding boundary conditions has an analytical solution, hence Eq.8 need not to be solved
numerically. The analytical solution is given by:
= 1

(14)

bvp5c does not accept second order differential equations, hence the Equations 9,10 need
to be converted to system of first order differential equations. To do this, we define new variables
as:
1 = ,

2 = ,

3 = ,

4 =

(15)

Using the definitions in Eq. 15 Equations 9 and 10 becomes:

2
1

)
2
2
[(1
2 + 2 4 + 2 ]
=(
)

4
3
[(1 )4 + (/) {[(1 )2 + 2 4 + 22 ]} ]
(4 )

(16)

The boundary conditions in Equations 11 and 12 can be transformed to:

@ =0,

2 = (1 1 ),

1 = 0 ,

3 = 1

(17)

3 = 0

(18)

4. Result Comparison
In this section, results obtained using MATLAB bvp5c function is compared with the
results given in [1].
Tables 1 through 4 are reproduction of Tables 1 through 5 in [1]. Table 3 here is equivalent to
Tables 3 and 4 in [1].

Table 1. Comparison of results for (0) , = = = 0, =

Ref [1]

bvp5c

0.07
0.20
0.70
2.00
7.00
20.00
70.00

0.0656
0.1691
0.4539
0.9114
1.8954
3.3539
6.4622

0.06557
7271552
0.16908
0.45391
1200
8570568
0.91135
6137381
808
1.89540
7600656
497
3.35390
2898991
324
6.46219
3018834
42
5369157
45
71

Table 2. Comparison of results for (0) and (0) , = 10, = 10 =

(0) [1]

0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1

0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5

0.9524
0.5056
0.2522
0.1194
0.0543
0.6932
0.5201
0.4026
0.3211

(0) bvp5c (0) [1]

(0) bvp5c

0.95232
0.50556
0.25215
0.11941
0.05425
0.69298
0.52003
0.40257
0.32106

2.12939
2.38186
2.41002
2.39965
2.38357
2.27371
2.52822
2.79476
3.03479

2.1294
2.3819
2.4100
2.3997
2.3836
2.2740
2.5286
2.7952
3.0351

Table 3. Comparison of results for (0) and (0) , = 10, = 10 = .1

(0) [1]

(0) bvp5c (0) [1]

(0) bvp5c

0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5

0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.4

0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5

0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0.5

0.0929
0.0927
0.0925
0.0923
0.0921
0.0873
0.0868
0.0861
0.0854
0.0845
0.0769
0.0751
0.0729
0.0703
0.0700
0.0597
0.0553
0.0503
0.0445
0.0386
0.0383
0.0325
0.0269
0.0220
0.0180

0.09291
0.09273
0.09255
0.09234
0.09213
0.08733
0.08676
0.08612
0.08539
0.08454
0.07688
0.07508
0.07292
0.07027
0.06697
0.05966
0.05535
0.05027
0.04455
0.03860
0.03833
0.03250
0.02690
0.02199
0.01801

2.27742
2.24896
2.22282
2.19920
2.17835
2.31094
2.31682
2.32607
2.33924
2.35704
2.32995
2.35693
2.38997
2.43031
2.47923
2.34583
2.39025
2.44114
2.49667
2.55287
2.35604
2.40711
2.45763
2.50386
2.54351

2.2774
2.2490
2.2228
2.1992
2.1783
2.3109
2.3168
2.3261
2.3392
2.3570
2.3299
2.3569
2.3900
2.4303
2.4792
2.3458
2.3903
2.4411
2.4967
2.5529
2.3560
2.4071
2.4576
2.5039
2.5435

Table 4. Comparison of results for (0), (0), and (0) , = = .5

(0) [1]

(0) bvp5c (0) [1] (0) bvp5c (0) [1]

(0) bvp5c

1
2
5
10
5
5
5
5
5
5
5

0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
1.0
10.0
100

0.1
0.1
0.1

5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
10
15
20

0.0789
0.0806
0.0735
0.0387
0.1476
0.1550
0.1557
0.1557
0.0647
0.0600
0.0570

0.07893
0.08062
0.07345
0.03868
0.14756
0.15499
0.15565
0.15572
0.06469
0.05999
0.05704

0.21069
0.19382
0.26549
0.61319
0.85244
0.98450
0.99844
0.99998
0.35313
0.40009
0.42959

1.5477
1.5554
1.5983
1.7293
1.6914
1.7122
1.7144
1.7146
2.3920
2.9899
3.4881

1.54768
1.55543
1.59832
1.72929
1.69138
1.71223
1.71438
1.71462
2.39198
2.98994
3.48815

0.2107
0.1938
0.2655
0.6132
0.8524
0.9845
0.9984
1.0000
0.3531
0.4001
0.4296

Table 1 shows results pertain to circumstances when the stretching sheet is at a constant
temperature and the Brownian and the thermophoresis effects are absent. Hence, table 1 represents
limiting cases that is used to test the capability of the numerical solver to handle singular boundary
conditions. As can be seen from Table 1, the results obtained matches Ref [1] to four digits. Notice
also that the wide range of Prandtl number considered in Table1 test the solver capability to solve
for different thermal boundary layer thicknesses. This requires different integration limits
depending on the Prandtl number. Table 2 shows another limiting case for the temperature
boundary condition while keeping the mass transfer physics intact. Again the comparison shows
great agreement. Notice that for some combinations of and the degree of agreement is only
to three digits instead of four. Tables 3 and 4 represents results for regular parameter values. The
cases considered have wide range of variation for all the parameters affecting the solution. The
comparison shows great agreement between the current results and Ref [1].
Figures 2 and 3 are reproduction of Figures 3 and 7 in Ref [1] respectively. These figures
show the variation of the dimensionless temperature and nanoparticle concentration within the
boundary layer with Lewis number as a varying parameter. Figures 2 and 3 show exact behavior
and trend as their counterparts in Ref [1].
Figures 4 and 5 are reproduction of Figures 4 and 8 in Ref [1] respectively. These figures
show the variation of the dimensionless temperature and nanoparticle concentration within the
boundary layer with Biot number as a varying parameter.

Works Cited
[1] A. Aziz and O. D. Makinde, "Boundary layer flow of a nanofluid past a stretching sheet with a
convective boundary condition," Int. J. Therm. Sci., vol. 50, pp. 1326-1332, 2011.

Figure 2.Effect of on temperature profiles. = = .1, = 5, = .1. Reproduction of

Figure 3 In Ref [1].

Figure 3.Effect of on concentration profiles. = = .1, = 5, = .1. Reproduction of

Figure 7 In Ref [1].

Figure 4.Effect of on temperature profiles. = = .1, = 5, = 5. Reproduction of

Figure 4 In Ref [1].

Figure 5.Effect of on concentration profiles. = = .1, = 5, = 5. Reproduction of

Figure 8 In Ref [1].