A Magneto-convection Over a Semi -infinite Porous Plate with Heat Generation

Convective flow through porous media is a branch of research undergoing rapid growth in fluid mechanics and heat transfer. This is quite natural because of its important applications in environmental, geophysical and energy related engineering problems. Prominent applications are the utilization of geothermal energy, the control of pollutant spread in ground water, the design of nuclear reactors, solar power collectors and the heat transfer associated with the deep storage of nuclear waste. The study of heat generation in moving fluids is important in problems dealing with chemical reactions and those concerned with dissociating fluids. Heat generation effects may alter the temperature distribution and this in turn can affect the particle deposition rate in nuclear reactors, electronic chips and semi conductor wafers. Although exact modeling of internal heat generation is quite difficult, some simple mathematical models can be used to express its general behaviour for most physical situations. The objective of this work is to investigate the effects of internal heat generation on an unsteady two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic free convection flow of a viscous, incompressible fluid free convection flow past a semi-infinite vertical porous plate embedded in a porous medium, in the presence of variable suction. The equations of continuity, linear momentum and energy, which govern the flow field, are transformed to a system of ordinary differential equations by perturbation technique. The resulting equations are solved analytically to obtain the solutions for the velocity and temperature fields. The behavior of the velocity, temperature, skin-friction and Nusselt number have been discussed for variations in the physical parameters.

Keywords:

Magneto , Porous plate , convection