Microstructure and inertial effects on natural convection micropolar nanofluid flow about a solid sphere

Abstract

The addition of nanoparticles is one of the modern scientific techniques to improve the heat transfer enhancement. However, micropolar fluid model is not examined under nanoparticle effects. The addition of nanoparticles in a micropolar fluid makes the mixture more complex as compared to the addition of conventional nanofluids. The innovative micropolar nanofluid model is introduced to explore nanofluid characteristics under microstructure and inertial effects. In this study, steady laminar 2D natural convection flow of copper (Cu) and alumina (Al2O3)-suspended micropolar nanofluid over a solid sphere with a constant surface heat flux is investigated. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into a dimensionless form and then solved numerically using an implicit finite difference scheme known as the Keller-box method. The behaviours of different parameters on temperature, velocity and angular velocity have been examined graphically for both Cu/Al2O3–water and Cu/Al2O3–kerosene oil. From the graphical results, it is found that the temperature and velocity fields of Al2O3–water have higher values as compared to those of Al2O3–kerosene oil.