Impact of exothermic chemical reaction on MHD unsteady mixed convective flow in a rectangular porous cavity filled with nanofluid

Abstract

The rectangular enclosure filled with nanofluid has several technical applications including building thermal management systems and photovoltaic thermal management systems. This investigation theoretically investigates the transport features of the time-dependent, mixed convective, electrically conducting nanofluid flow inside a cavity saturated with permeable medium. The impact of a uniform magnetic field applied in the transverse direction to the fluid flow and Arrhenius kinetics theory based exothermic chemical reaction are considered. The Buongiorno's model is adopted in the present analysis to characterize the nanofluid. The constitutive partial differential equations are solved by using the Marker and Cell (MAC) technique. The impact of the nondimensional numbers on transport phenomena of the present study is elucidated graphically. The outcomes disclose that the pertinent parameters such as the Reynolds number (Re), Hartmann number (Ha), Darcy number (Da), Lewis number (Le), Richardson number (Ri), thermophoresis parameter $(N_T)$, Brownian motion parameter $(N_B)$, and Frank-Kamenetskii number (Fk) play a main role on regulating the transport characteristics of the present study. Results demonstrate that the isotherms increase with escalating Frank–Kamenetskii number values. Higher Richardson number values improve the heat transfer inside the enclosure.

Keywords:

• Magnetic field
• non-Darcy porous medium
• exothermic chemical reaction
• rectangular enclosure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The second author (R. Sivaraj) is thankful to the Ministry of Education, United Arab Emirates for the financial assistance to complete this research work through the Collaborative Research Program Grant 2019 (CRPG 2019) with the fund number 21S107.