Convective Flow of Non-homogeneous Fluid Conveying Nano-Sized Particles with Non-Fourier Thermal Relaxation: Application in Polymer Coating

The present article addresses the steady incompressible convective flow of kinetic theory-based Eyring–Powell fluid conveying nano-sized particle from a vertical plate with convective boundary condition and distribution of nanoparticles fraction over its surface. Cattaneo–Christov model is imposed to scrutinize the heat transfer analysis. A revised Buongiorno model is adopted, which considers zero nanoparticle flux at the wall surface and simulates physically more viable scenarios for nanoparticle distribution. The study has applications in designing heat exchangers, cooling metallic plates, surface coating dynamics, etc. The reduced nonlinear equations in ( η , ξ ) coordinate system transformed from ( x , y ) coordinate system is non-similar nature and are solved by using two efficient techniques: the Sparrow–Yu local non-similarity method and the Liao Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM). Excellent corroboration of the converged results for both methods is achieved with the existing results. In order to discuss the influence of thermophysical parameters, the HAM simulations have been presented graphically and tabulated to visualize the distribution of skin friction coefficient, rate of heat transfer (Nusselt number) and mass transfer rate (Sherwood number) for the boundary layer regime. It is observed that the Eyring–Powell fluid conveying nano-sized particle attains a higher velocity but lower temperatures than Newtonian fluid conveying nano-sized particle. Skin friction factor exhibits an inverse relation with Deborah (viscoelastic) number and Cattaneo–Christov thermal relaxation parameter. Nusselt number increases whereas nanoparticle Sherwood number decreases with increment in Eyring–Powell parameter and mixed convection parameter. The current simulations furnish interesting insights into non-Newtonian nano-coating dynamics of relevance in the polymer processing industry.