Journal of Applied Mathematics
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 421320, 18 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/421320
Research Article

Flow and Heat Transfer of Cu-Water Nanofluid between a Stretching Sheet and a Porous Surface in a Rotating System

M. Sheikholeslami,1 H. R. Ashorynejad,2 G. Domairry,1 and I. Hashim3,4

1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran
3School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
4Solar Energy Research Institute, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

Received 26 January 2012; Revised 15 March 2012; Accepted 15 March 2012

Academic Editor: Srinivasan Natesan

Copyright © 2012 M. Sheikholeslami et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to study the flow of nanofluid and heat transfer characteristics between two horizontal plates in a rotating system. The lower plate is a stretching sheet and the upper one is a solid porous plate. Copper (Cu) as nanoparticle and water as its base fluid have been considered. The governing partial differential equations with the corresponding boundary conditions are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations with the appropriate boundary conditions using similarity transformation, which is then solved analytically using the homotopy analysis method (HAM). Comparison between HAM and numerical solutions results showed an excellent agreement. The results for the flow and heat transfer characteristics are obtained for various values of the nanoparticle volume fraction, suction/injection parameter, rotation parameter, and Reynolds number. It is shown that the inclusion of a nanoparticle into the base fluid of this problem is capable of causing change in the flow pattern. It is found that for both suction and injection, the heat transfer rate at the surface increases with increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction, Reynolds number, and injection/suction parameter and it decreases with power of rotation parameter.