Magnetohydrodynamic flow of Carreau fluid over a convectively heated surface in the presence of non-linear radiation

• We investigated the Magnetohydrodynamic flow of Carreau constitutive fluid model.
• Impact of non-linear thermal radiation is further taken into account.
• Runge-Kutta Fehlberg method is employed to obtain the numerical solutions.
• Fluid velocity is higher in case of hydromagnetic flow in comparison with hydrodynamic flow.
• The local Nusselt number is a decreasing function of the thermal radiation parameter.

This paper presents a study of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) boundary layer flow of a non-Newtonian Carreau fluid over a convectively heated surface. The analysis of heat transfer is further performed in the presence of non-linear thermal radiation. The appropriate transformations are employed to bring the governing equations into dimensionless form. The numerical solutions of the partially coupled non-linear ordinary differential equations are obtained by using the Runge-Kutta Fehlberg integration scheme. The influence of non-dimensional governing parameters on the velocity, temperature, local skin friction coefficient and local Nusselt number is studied and discussed with the help of graphs and tables. Results proved that there is significant decrease in the velocity and the corresponding momentum boundary layer thickness with the growth in the magnetic parameter. However, a quite the opposite is true for the temperature and the corresponding thermal boundary layer thickness.