Soret and Dufour effects on an unsteady MHD flow about a permeable rotating vertical cone with variable fluid properties

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to examine the characteristics of unsteady incompressible magnetohydrodynamic fluid flow around a permeable rotating vertical cone. The effects of thermal radiation, viscous dissipation, and the Soret and Dufour effects are investigated in the analysis of heat and mass transfer. The viscosity of the fluid is considered inversely proportional to the temperature, and the thermal conductivity of the fluid is considered directly proportional to the temper-ature. The governing equations are converted into ordinary differential equations using suitable similarity transformations, which are then solved numerically using bvp4c from MATLAB. Results obtained in this study are in excellent correlation with previously conducted studies. The results demonstrate that the Dufour and Soret effects subsequently reduce the heat transit rate (by –3.3%) and mass transit rate (by –1.2%) of the system. It is also detected that fluids with higher viscosity tend to increase tangential skin friction (+8.9%) and azimuthal skin friction (+8.3%). The heat transit rate of the system is found to be more efficient for fluids with higher viscosity and lower thermal conductivity and Eckert numbers. Further-more, the thickness of the momentum, thermal, and concentration boundary layers significantly reduces while the heat and mass transit rates (+17.8% and +18.3%, respectively) of the system become more efficient for greater values of the un-steadiness parameter.