Title: Hall effect on thermal instability in a horizontal layer of nanofluid saturated in a porous medium

Authors: Ramesh Chand; Gian C. Rana

Addresses: Department of Mathematics, Government College Nurpur, PIN 176202, Himachal Pradesh, India ' Department of Mathematics, Government College Nadaun, PIN 177103, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract: Hall effect on thermal instability of nanofluid in a porous medium is investigated by using Galerkin residuals method for free-free boundaries. For porous medium Darcy model is used. The model used for the nanofluid describes the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis. A linear stability theory based upon the perturbation method and normal mode technique is used to find the expression for Rayleigh number for a horizontal layer of nanofluid. The influence of Hall effect and other parameters on the stability is investigated both analytically and graphically. It is found that Hall effect and porosity destabilises the fluid layer while the magnetic field and Lewis number stabilises the fluid layer heated from below.

Keywords: nanofluids; Hall effect; Lewis number; Chandrasekhar number; Galerkin method; porosity; thermal instability; horizontal layers; nanotechnology; magnetic field.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTAMM.2014.069455

International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Multiscale Mechanics, 2014 Vol.3 No.1, pp.58 - 73

Accepted: 05 Mar 2015
Published online: 16 May 2015 *

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