Transport in Porous Media, Vol.97, No.2, 241-252, 2013
Free Convection of Non-Newtonian Nanofluids in Porous media with Gyrotactic Microorganisms
The free convection of non-Newtonian nanofluids along a vertical plate in porous medium is investigated numerically. It is assumed that the medium contains gyrotactic microorganisms along with nanoparticles and the plate is subjected to prescribed temperature, concentration of nanoparticles and density of motile microorganisms. It is further assumed that the plate is impermeable. The governing partial differential equations are reduced to nonlinear ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations. The nonlinear ordinary differential equations are then solved by a finite difference numerical method. The effects of controlling parameters on several dimensionless quantities and numbers of our interest are investigated. The numerical results are compared with the published data and an excellent agreement has been found. It is found that nanofluid and bioconvection parameters have strong effects on local Nusselt, Sherwood and density numbers.
Keywords:Boundary layer;Free convection;Porous medium;Nanofluid;Gyrotactic microorganisms;Bioconvection;Vertical plate