Effects of temperature dependent thermal conductivity on magnetohydrodynamic free convection flow along a vertical flat plate

Abstract

The effects of temperature dependent thermal conductivity on Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) free convection flow along a vertical flat plate have been investigated. The governing equations with associated boundary conditions for this phenomenon are converted to dimensionless form using suitable transformations. The transformed non-linear partial differential equations are then solved using the implicit finite difference method with Keller–box scheme. FORTRAN 90 is used to perform computational job and the post processing software TECPLOT has been used to display the numerical results graphically. Numerical results of the velocity profiles, temperature profiles, skin friction coefficient and surface temperature distribution for different values of the magnetic parameter M, thermal conductivity variation parameter g, Prandtl number Pr, heat generation parameter Q, joule heating parameter J and viscous dissipation parameter N are presented graphically. The comparison of the present numerical results in terms of skin friction coefficient and surface temperature with some published results is shown in tabular forms.