Unsteady stagnation point flow and heat transfer over a stretching/shrinking sheet

This study investigates the problem of unsteady stagnation point flow and heat transfer over a stretching/shrinking sheet. The governing partial differential equations are converted into a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations using a similarity transformation, before being solved numerically. Both stretching and shrinking cases are considered. It is found that dual solutions exist for the shrinking case while for the stretching case, the solution is unique. Moreover, it is found that the heat transfer rate at the surface increases as the stretching/shrinking parameter as well as the unsteadiness parameter increases. © 2011 Asian Network for Scientific Information.