Heat transfer in a viscoelastic boundary layer flow through a porous medium

This paper examines the viscoelastic fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics in a saturated porous medium over an impermeable stretching surface with frictional heating and internal heat generation or absorption. The heat transfer analysis has been carried out for two different heating processes, namely (i) with prescribed surface temperature (PST-case) and (ii) prescribed surface heat flux (PHF-case). The governing equations for the boundary layer flow problem result similar solutions. For the specified five boundary conditions, it is not possible to solve directly the resulting sixth-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation. For the present incompressible boundary layer flow problem with constant physical parameters, the momentum equation is decoupled from the energy equation. Two closed–form solutions for the momentum equation are obtained and identified the realistic solution of the physical problem. Exact solution for the velocity field and the skin-friction are obtained. Also, the solution for the temperature and the heat transfer characteristics are obtained in terms of Kummer’s function. Asymptotic results for the temperature function for large Prandtl numbers are presented. The work due to deformation in the energy equation, which is essential and escaped from the attention of researchers while formulating the visco-elastic boundary layer flow problems, is considered. Drastic variation in the values of heat transfer coefficient is observed when the work due to deformation is ignored.