Impact of Reynolds number in modulating wall stresses in radial stagnation-point flow

Abstract

Wall stresses play a critical role in fluid dynamics and understanding their impact can lead to significant improvements in system performance and efficiency. This article presents a study on the impact of the Reynolds number and magnetic number on wall stresses, energy transport, and thermodynamic irreversibility analysis in axisymmetric flow near the stagnation region. We consider a hybrid nanofluid flow containing titania and silica nanoparticles, using Yamada-Ota and Xue thermal conductivity models. The flow is driven by a cylinder rotating along the z-direction with solar radiation and a magnetic field. To formulate the problem, we use similarity transformation to obtain dimensionless ordinary differential equations and obtain numerical solutions with graphical illustrations by bvp5c in Matlab. The comparison between hybrid nanofluid models indicates a higher rate of heat transformation, with the Yamada-Ota hybrid nanofluid model demonstrating better and faster heat transport properties than the Xue model. This study underlines the importance of understanding the impact of controlled parameters on wall stresses to optimize fluid dynamics system performance and efficiency. Moreover, it highlights the potential of entropy generation analysis to identify changes in thermal processes and reduce the loss of available mechanical power in thermo-fluid systems and provides a foundation for exploring and developing advanced technologies and systems with improved heat transfer performance and energy efficiency.