Copyright © 2012 M. Gnaneswara Reddy. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The effects of radiation and heat generation on steady thermal boundary layer flow induced by a linearly stretching sheet immersed in an incompressible micropolar fluid with constant surface temperature are investigated. Similarity transformation is employed to transform the governing partial differential equations into ordinary ones, which are then solved numerically using the Runge-Kutta fourth order along shooting method. Results for the local Nusselt number as well as the temperature profiles are presented for different values of the governing parameters. It is observed that the velocity increases with an increase in the material parameter. It is seen that the temperature profile is influenced considerably and increases when the value of heat generation parameter increases along the boundary layer. Also, the temperature distribution of the fluid increases with an increase in the radiation parameter. Comparisons with previously published work are performed and the results are found to be in very good agreement.