Heat transfer in a visco-elastic fluid past a stretching sheet with viscous dissipation and internal heat generation

Abstract

This paper deals with the study of heat transfer characteristics in the laminar boundary layer flow of a visco-elastic fluid over a linearly stretching continuous surface with variable wall temperature subjected to suction or blowing. The study considers the effects of frictional heating (viscous dissipation) and internal heat generation or absorption. An analysis has been carried out for two different cases of heating processes namely: (i) Prescribed surface temperature (PST) and (ii) Prescribed wall heat flux (PHF) to get the effect of visco-elastic parameter for various situations. Further increase of visco-elastic parameter is to decrease the skin friction on the sheet. The solutions for the temperature and the heat transfer characteristics are obtained in terms of Kummers function. © 2006 Birkhäuser Verlag.