Boundary layer flow and heat transfer of viscoelastic nanofluids past a stretching sheet with partial slip conditions

The aim of the paper is to analyze the effect of velocity slip boundary condition on the flow and heat transfer of non-Newtonian nanofluid over a stretching sheet. The Brownian motion and thermophoresis effects are also considered. The boundary layer equations governed by the partial differential equations are transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations with the help of group theory transformations. The obtained ordinary differential equations are solved by variational finite element method (FEM). The effects of different controlling parameters, namely, the Brownian motion parameter, the thermophoresis parameter, viscoelastic parameter, Prandtl number, Lewis number and the slip parameter on the flow field and heat transfer characteristics are examined. The numerical results for the dimensionless velocity, temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction as well as the reduced Nusselt and Sherwood number have been presented graphically. The present study is of great interest in the fields of coatings and suspensions, cooling of metallic plates, oils and grease, paper production, coal water or coal–oil slurries, heat exchangers’ technology, and materials’ processing and exploiting.