Numerical study of thermal and solutal advancements in ZnO–SAE50 nanolubricant flow past a convergent/divergent channel with the effects of thermophoretic particle deposition

Abstract

The present research focuses on the significance of thermophoretic particle deposition on a ZnO–SAE50 nanolubricant flow in a stretchable/shrinkable convergent/divergent channel in the presence of an applied magnetic field and nonlinear heat radiation. A parameter in the governing differential equations and wall boundary conditions defines the physical mechanism of the model. The Galerkin finite element method, combined with similarity transformation, is adopted to solve the governing equations. The Levenberg–Marquardt backpropagating algorithm of an artificial neural network model forecasts heat and mass transfer properties. The results reveal that by stretching/shrinking the walls enough, the classical flow and heat properties are significantly affected. The stretching of the convergent or divergent channel is observed to increase the velocity profiles, whilst shrinking results in backflow regions. In terms of the temperature field, stretching causes more heat to be produced in the flow; nevertheless, the thermal layer is decreased and cooling is attained by channel shrinkage, which may have important technical implications.