Multiple solutions of an unsteady stagnation-point flow with melting heat transfer in a Darcy-Brinkman porous medium

Abstract

The characteristics of the unsteady boundary layer flow with melting heat transfer near a stagnation-point towards a flat plate embedded in a DarcyBrinkman porous medium with thermal radiation are investigated. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into self-similar ordinary differential equations by similarity transformations. The transformed self-similar equations are solved numerically using bvp4c from Matlab for several values of the flow parameters. The study reveals that the multiple solutions exist for the decelerating (A < 0) flow, whereas for the accelerating (A = 0) flow, the solution is unique. The results also indicate that the melting phenomenon increases the rate of heat transfer and delays the boundary layer separation. To validate the current numerical results, comparison with available results is made and found to be in a good agreement.