Finite Element Analysis of MHD Flow of Micropolar Fluid over a Shrinking Sheet with a Convective Surface Boundary Condition

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This paper presents a numerical solution for the steady mixed convection magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid over a porous shrinking sheet. The velocity of shrinking sheet and magnetic field are assumed to vary as power functions of the distance from the origin. A convective boundary condition is used rather than the customary conditions for temperature, i.e., constant surface temperature or constant heat flux. With the aid of similarity transformations, the governing partial differential equations are transformed into a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, which are solved numerically, using the variational finite element method (FEM). The influence of various emerging thermophysical parameters, namely suction parameter, convective heat transfer parameter, magnetic parameter and power index on velocity, microrotation and temperature functions is studied extensively and is shown graphically. Additionally the skin friction and rate of heat transfer, which provide an estimate of the surface shear stress and the rate of cooling of the surface, respectively, have also been computed for these parameters. Under the limiting case an analytical solution of the flow velocity is compared with the present numerical results. An excellent agreement between the two sets of solutions is observed. Also, in order to check the convergence of numerical solution, the calculations are carried out by reducing the mesh size. The present study finds applications in materials processing and demonstrates excellent stability and convergence characteristics for the variational FEM code.