A new algorithm for internal heat generation in nanofluid flow due to a stretching sheet in a porous medium

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study heat and mass transfer in copper-water and silver-water nanofluid flow over stretching sheet placed in saturated porous medium with internal heat generation or absorption. The authors further introduce a new algorithm for solving heat transfer problems in fluid mechanics. The model used for the nanofluid incorporates the nanoparticle volume fraction parameter and a consideration of the chemical reaction effects among other features. Design/methodology/approach - The partial differential equations for heat and mass transfer in copper-water and silver-water nanofluid flow over stretching sheet were transformed into a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Exact solutions for the boundary layer equations were obtained in terms of a confluent hypergeometric series. A novel spectral relaxation method (SRM) is used to obtain numerical approximations of the governing differential equations. The exact solutions are used to test the convergence and accuracy of the SRM. Findings - Results were obtained for the fluid properties as well as the skin friction, and the heat and mass transfer rates. The results are compared with limiting cases from previous studies and they show that the proposed technique is an efficient numerical algorithm with assured convergence that serves as an alternative to numerical methods for solving nonlinear boundary value problems. Originality/value - A new algorithm is used for the first time in this paper. In addition, new exact solutions for the energy and mass transport equations have been obtained in terms of a confluent hypergeometric series.