Oscillatory dissipative conjugate heat and mass transfer in chemically-reacting micropolar flow with wall couple stress : a finite element numerical study

High temperature non-Newtonian materials processing provides a stimulating area for process engineering simulation. Motivated by emerging applications in this area, the present article investigates the time-dependent free convective flow of a chemically-reacting micropolar fluid from a vertical plate oscillating in its own plane adjacent to a porous medium. Thermal radiative, viscous dissipation and wall couple stress effects are included. The Rosseland diffusion approximation is used to model uni-directional radiative heat flux in the energy equation. Darcy’s model is adopted to mimic porous medium drag force effects. The governing two-dimensional conservation equations are normalized with appropriate variables and transformed into a dimensionless, coupled, nonlinear system of partial differential equations under the assumption of low Reynolds number. The governing boundary value problem is then solved under physically viable boundary conditions numerically with a finite element method based on the weighted residual approach. Graphical illustrations for velocity, micro-rotation (angular velocity), temperature and concentration are obtained as functions of the emerging physical parameters i.e. thermal radiation, viscous dissipation, first order chemical reaction parameter etc. Furthermore, friction factor (skin friction), surface heat transfer and mass transfer rates have been tabulated quantitatively for selected thermo-physical parameters. A comparison with previously published paper is made to check the validity and accuracy of the present finite element solutions under some limiting cases and excellent agreement is attained. Additionally, a mesh independence study is conducted. The model is relevant to reactive polymeric materials processing simulation

Finite element computation of multi-physical micropolar transport phenomena from an inclined moving plate in porous media

Non-Newtonian flows arise in numerous industrial transport processes including materials fabrication systems. Micropolar theory offers an excellent mechanism for exploring the fluid dynamics of new non-Newtonian materials which possess internal microstructure. Magnetic fields may also be used for controlling electrically-conducting polymeric flows. To explore numerical simulation of transport in rheological materials processing, in the current paper, a finite element computational solution is presented for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), incompressible, dissipative, radiative and chemically-reacting micropolar fluid flow, heat and mass transfer adjacent to an inclined porous plate embedded in a saturated homogenous porous medium. Heat generation/absorption effects are included. Rosseland’s diffusion approximation is used to describe the radiative heat flux in the energy equation. A Darcy model is employed to simulate drag effects in the porous medium. The governing transport equations are rendered into non-dimensional form under the assumption of low Reynolds number and also low magnetic Reynolds number. Using a Galerkin formulation with a weighted residual scheme, finite element solutions are presented to the boundary value problem. The influence of plate inclination, Eringen coupling number, radiation-conduction number, heat absorption/generation parameter, chemical reaction parameter, plate moving velocity parameter, magnetic parameter, thermal Grashof number, species (solutal) Grashof number, permeability parameter, Eckert number on linear velocity, micro-rotation, temperature and concentration profiles. Furthermore, the influence of selected thermo-physical parameters on friction factor, surface heat transfer and mass transfer rate is also tabulated. The finite element solutions are verified with solutions from several limiting cases in the literature. Interesting features in the flow are identified and interpreted