Radiation and mass transfer effects on unsteady MHD free convective flow of mercury and liquid sodium in a porous medium with heat source/sink and chemical reaction

This study deals with unsteady two-dimensional, laminar, boundary layer flow of mercury and liquid sodium along a semi-infinite vertical porous plate in the presence of thermal and concentration buoyancy effects under the influence of uniform magnetic field applied normal to the flow. A time dependent suction is assumed and the radiative flux is described using the differential approximation for radiation. Asymptotic series expansion about a small parameter ε is performed to obtain the flow fields. The Galerkin finite element method is used to solve the equations governing the flow. The results obtained are discussed for cooking (Gt>0) and heating (Gt<0) of the plate with the help of graphs and tables to observe the effects of various parameters such as P_t, S_c, M, A, G_m, S, K^*, R, K₁ buoyancy effects are enhanced and the fluid velocity increases. Furthermore, when the Prandtl and Schmidt numbers increase, the thermal and concentration levels decrease resulting in reduced fluid velocity.