Heat transfer and flow analysis of nanofluid flow induced by a stretching sheet in the presence of an external magnetic field

•Nanofluid flow and heat transfer induced by a stretching vertical sheet considering buoyancy effect.•The governing equations are solved via the fourth order Runge-Kutta method.•Nusselt number is a decreasing function of volume fraction.•Maximum values of heat transfer enhancement are obtained by selecting Ethylene Glycol-50% as base fluid.

In this study, we investigated the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) convective nanofluid flow over a vertical stretching sheet considering the thermal radiation and buoyancy effects. Three different base fluids and four different nanoparticles were examined as nanofluid. The governing nonlinear partial differential equations along with the boundary conditions were transformed into a dimensionless form; afterwards, they were solved numerically by the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method with the shooting technique. Parametric investigation was conducted and the influence of various physical parameters, such as magnetic parameter buoyancy parameter, nanoparticle size, nanoparticle concentrations and radiation parameter on velocities and temperature profiles, skin fraction coefficient and reduced Nusselt number are reported. According to the results, TiO2–ethylene glycol 50% leads the simulation to maximize the reduced Nusselt number and minimize the skin fraction coefficient. As the results indicated, the reduced Nusselt number had an inverse relation with increasing the nanoparticle concentrations. Furthermore, comparison with published results was presented by an excellent agreement.

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