Magnetohydrodynamic free convection of Al2O3–water nanofluid considering Thermophoresis and Brownian motion effects

• MHD effect on natural convection heat transfer is investigated.
• CVFEM is used to solve this problem.
• The effect of Nt and Nb has been included in the model of nanofluid.
• A correlation of Nuave corresponding to active parameters is presented.
• Nuave increases with increase of Nb and decrease with augment of Ha and Le.

In this study MHD effect on natural convection heat transfer in an enclosure filled with nanofluid is investigated. The transport equations used in the analysis took into account the effect of Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameters. The Navier Stokes equations in their vorticity-stream function form are used to simulate the flow pattern, isotherms and concentration. The governing equations are solved via Control Volume based Finite Element Method. The inner and outer circular walls are maintained at constant temperatures while two other walls are thermally insulated. The heat transfer between cold and hot regions of the enclosure cannot be well understood by using isotherm patterns so heatline visualization technique is used to find the direction and intensity of heat transfer in a domain. Effect of Hartmann number (Ha = 0, 30, 60 and 100), buoyancy ratio number (Nr = 0.1–4) and Lewis number (Le = 2, 4, 6 and 8) on streamline, isotherm, isoconcentration and heatline are examined. Also a correlation for Nusselt number corresponding to active parameters is presented. The results indicate that Nusselt number is an increasing function of buoyancy ratio number but it is a decreasing function of Lewis number and Hartmann number. Also it can be concluded that as buoyancy ratio number increases the effects of other active parameters are more pronounced.