%0 Journal Article
%T Computational Modelling of Couette Flow of Nanofluids with Viscous Heating and Convective Cooling
%A Oluwole Daniel Makinde
%A Ahmada Omar
%A M. Samuel Tshehla
%J International Journal of Computational Mathematics
%D 2014
%R 10.1155/2014/631749
%X The combined effect of viscous heating and convective cooling on Couette flow and heat transfer characteristics of water base nanofluids containing Copper Oxide (CuO) and Alumina (Al2O3) as nanoparticles is investigated. It is assumed that the nanofluid flows in a channel between two parallel plates with the channel¡¯s upper plate accelerating and exchange heat with the ambient surrounding following the Newton¡¯s law of cooling, while the lower plate is stationary and maintained at a constant temperature. Using appropriate similarity transformation, the governing Navier-Stokes and the energy equations are reduced to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. These equations are solved analytically by regular perturbation method with series improvement technique and numerically by an efficient Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg integration technique coupled with shooting method. The effects of the governing parameters on the dimensionless velocity, temperature, skin friction, pressure drop and Nusselt number are presented graphically, and discussed quantitatively. 1. Introduction Studies related to laminar flow and heat transfer of a viscous fluid in the space between two parallel plates, one of which is moving relative to the other, have received the attention of several researchers due to their numerous industrial and engineering applications. This type of flow is named in honour of Maurice Marie Alfred Couette, a professor of physics at the French University of Angers in the late 19th century [1]. Couette flow has been used to estimate the drag force in many wall driven applications such as lubrication engineering, power generators and pumps, polymer technology, petroleum industry, and purification of crude oil. Literature survey indicates that interest in the Couette flows has grown during the past decades. Jana and Datta [2] examined the effects of Coriolis force on the Couette flow and heat transfer between two parallel plates in a rotating system. Singh [3] studied unsteady free convection flow of an incompressible viscous fluid between two vertical parallel plates, in which one is fixed and the other is impulsively started in its own plane. Kearsley [4] investigated the problem of steady state Couette flow with viscous heating. Jha [5] numerically examined the effects of magnetic field on Couette flow between two vertical parallel plates. The combined effects of variable viscosity and thermal conductivity on generalized Couette flow and heat transfer in the presence of transversely imposed magnetic field have been studied numerically by Makinde and
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcm/2014/631749/