Stagnation-point flow of Jeffrey fluid with melting heat transfer and Soret and Dufour effects

Purpose - This investigation has been carried out for thermal-diffusion (Dufour) and diffusion-thermo (Soret) effects on the boundary layer flow of Jeffrey fluid in the region of stagnation-point towards a stretching sheet. Heat transfer occurring during the melting process due to a stretching sheet is considered. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - The authors convert governing partial differential equations into ordinary differential equations by using suitable transformations. Analytic solutions of velocity and temperature are found by using homotopy analysis method (HAM). Further graphs are displayed to study the salient features of embedding parameters. Expressions of skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number have also been derived and examined. Findings - It is found that velocity and the boundary layer thickness are increasing functions of viscoelastic parameter (Deborah number). An increase in the melting process enhances the fluid velocity. An opposite effect of melting heat process is noticed on velocity and skin friction. Practical implications - The boundary layer flow in non-Newtonian fluids is very important in many applications including polymer and food processing, transpiration cooling, drag reduction, thermal oil recovery and ice and magma flows. Further, the thermal diffusion effect is employed for isotope separation and in mixtures between gases with very light and medium molecular weight. Originality/value - Very scarce literature is available on thermal-diffusion (Dufour) and diffusion-thermo (Soret) effects on the boundary layer flow of Jeffrey fluid in the region of stagnation-point towards a stretching sheet with melting heat transfer. Series solution is developed using HAM. Further, the authors compare the present results with the existing in literature and found excellent agreement.