Magnetohydrodynamic effects on natural convection flow of a nanofluid in the presence of heat source due to solar energy

The objective of the present work is to investigate theoretically the MHD convective flow and heat transfer of an incompressible viscous nanofluid past a porous vertical stretching sheet in the presence of variable stream condition due to solar radiation (incident radiation). The governing equations are derived using the usual boundary-layer and Boussinesq approximations and accounting for the presence of an applied magnetic field and incident radiation flux. The absorbed radiation acts as a distributed source which initiates buoyancy-driven flow and convection in the absorbed layer. The partial differential equations governing the problem under consideration are transformed by a special form of Lie symmetry group transformations viz. one-parameter group of transformation into a system of ordinary differential equations which are solved numerically using Runge Kutta Gill based shooting method. The conclusion is drawn that the flow field and temperature are significantly influenced by radiation, heat source and magnetic field.