Boundary-layer flow of a nanofluid past a stretching sheet

The problem of laminar fluid flow which results from the stretching of a flat surface in a nanofluid has been investigated numerically. This is the first paper on stretching sheet in nanofluids. The model used for the nanofluid incorporates the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis. A similarity solution is presented which depends on the Prandtl number Pr, Lewis number Le, Brownian motion number Nb and thermophoresis number Nt. The variation of the reduced Nusselt and reduced Sherwood numbers with Nb and Nt for various values of Pr and Le is presented in tabular and graphical forms. It was found that the reduced Nusselt number is a decreasing function of each dimensionless number, while the reduced Sherwood number is an increasing function of higher Pr and a decreasing function of lower Pr number for each Le, Nb and Nt numbers.