SORET AND DUFOUR EFFECTS ON MHD FLOW OF A MICROPOLAR FLUID PAST OVER A VERTICAL RIGA PLATE

The present study investigates heat and mass transport phenomena associated with the MHD flow of micropolar fluid over a vertically stretched Riga plate under the action of a uniform magnetic field applied parallel to the plate. The objective of the study is to analyze Soret and Dufour effects on this physical situation in the presence of chemical reaction. The governing partial differential equations are converted into ordinary differential equations using suitable similarity transformations. The equations are solved numerically by developing programming codes in MATLAB for the very efficient shooting method along with the fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme. The velocity, microrotation, temperature and species concentration distribution are presented graphically for various emerging physical parameters like Hartmann number, material parameter, Soret number, Dufour number and other dimensionless parameters. It is found that the species concentration distribution profiles increase with increasing Soret number, whereas the temperature distribution profile decreases with an increasing Soret number. This work also provides solutions for shear stress at plates, the rate of heat and mass transfer in addition to those for velocity, microrotation, temperature and species concentration. Comparisons with previous studies are carefully examined, and it is found that they are generally in agreement.