Stagnation point flow of a nanofluid past a non-aligned stretching/shrinking sheet with a second-order slip velocity
Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the second order slip velocity on the boundary layer stagnation point flow of a nanofluid past a non-aligned stretching/shrinking sheet. Design/methodology/approach Proper similarity variables are used to transform the system of partial differential equations into a system of ordinary (similarity) differential equations. This system is then solved numerically using the bvp4c solver in MATLAB software. As in the papers by Kuznetsov and Nield (2010, 2013) and Fang et al. (2009), the authors considered the stretching/shrinking parameter λ, the first-order (a1, a2) and second-order (b1) slip parameters and the Lewis number Le, Nb the Brownian parameter and Nt the thermophoresis parameter fixed at Le = 10, Nb = Nt = 0.5 when the Prandtl number Pr is fixed at Pr = 1. Findings Dual solutions are found as the sheet is shrunk in the horizontal direction. Stability analysis shows that the first solution is physically realizable, whereas the second solution is not practicable. Originality/value The present results are original and new for the study of fluid flow and heat transfer over a stretching/shrinking surface, as they successfully extend the problem considered by Wang (2008) and Lok et al. (2011) to the case of nanofluids.