Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2011 (2011), Article ID 489217, 19 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/489217
Research Article

On New Numerical Techniques for the MHD Flow Past a Shrinking Sheet with Heat and Mass Transfer in the Presence of a Chemical Reaction

Z. G. Makukula,1 P. Sibanda,1 S. S. Motsa,1 and S. Shateyi2

1School of Mathematical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg 3209, South Africa
2Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0950, South Africa

Received 29 July 2011; Revised 22 August 2011; Accepted 23 August 2011

Academic Editor: Oleg V. Gendelman

Copyright © 2011 Z. G. Makukula 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

We use recent innovative solution techniques to investigate the problem of MHD viscous flow due to a shrinking sheet with a chemical reaction. A comparison is made of the convergence rates, ease of use, and expensiveness (the number of iterations required to give convergent results) of three seminumerical techniques in solving systems of nonlinear boundary value problems. The results were validated using a multistep, multimethod approach comprising the use of the shooting method, the Matlab bvp4c numerical routine, and with results in the literature.