Unsteady MHD Free Convection Flow of Nanofluid Past an Accelerated Vertical Plate with Variable Temperature and Thermal Radiation

An analytical study is performed to study the problem of nanofluid flow and heat transfer due to the exponentially accelerated motion of an infinite vertical plate in the presence of (i) magnetic field, (ii) thermal radiation and (iii) variable temperature at the plate. A range of nanofluids containing nanoparticles of aluminium oxide, copper, titanium oxide and silver with nanoparticle volume fraction range ≤ 0.04 are considered. The partial differential equations governing the flow are solved by Laplace transform technique. Excellent validation of the present results is achieved with existing results in the literature. The effects of various parameters occurring into the problem such as nanoparticle volume fraction, nanofluid type, magnetic parameter, radiation parameter, accelerating parameter and thermal Grashof number on the velocity and temperature profiles, skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number are easily examined and discussed via the closed forms obtained which may be further used to verify the validity of obtained numerical solutions for more complicated transient free convection nanofluid flow problems. © 2016, Springer India Pvt. Ltd.