Momentum and Heat Transfer in MHD Stagnation-Point Flow Over a Shrinking Sheet

Abstract

The steady two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stagnation-point flow of an electrically conducting incompressible viscous fluid toward a shrinking sheet is investigated. The sheet is shrunk in its own plane with a velocity proportional to the distance from the stagnation-point and a uniform magnetic field is applied normal to the sheet. Velocity component parallel to the sheet is found to increase with an increase in the magnetic field parameter M. A region of reverse flow occurs near the surface of the shrinking sheet. It is shown that as M increases, the tendency of this flow reversal decreases. It is also observed that the nonalignment of the stagnation-point flow and the shrinking sheet considerably complicates the flow structure. The effect of the magnetic parameter M on the streamlines is shown for both aligned and nonaligned cases. The temperature distribution in the boundary layer is found when the surface is held at constant temperature. The analysis reveals that the temperature at a point increases with increasing M in a certain neighborhood of the surface but beyond this, the temperature decreases with increasing M. For fixed M, the surface heat flux decreases with increase in the shrinking rate.