Abstract
The characteristics of Stefan blowing effects in a magneto-hydrodynamic flow of a Casson fluid past a stretching sheet are investigated. The effects of radiation, heat source/sink, Newtonian heating, Arrhenius activation energy and binary chemical reaction are considered for heat and mass transfer analysis. The homotopy analysis method (HAM) was utilised to solve the transformed non-dimensionalized equations analytically. The impact of various physical parameters affecting the flow are investigated. Further, the relationship of various parameters on the skin friction and rate of heat and mass transfer was explored using correlation and probable error. A sensitivity analysis was carried out based on the Response Surface Methodology to analyse the effect of Stefan blowing parameter, magnetic parameter and stretching/shrinking parameter on the reduced Nusselt number and reduced Sherwood number. A constant positive sensitivity for the reduced Nusselt number towards the Stefan blowing parameter for all levels of magnetic parameter and stretching/shrinking parameter was found. Further, the reduced Sherwood number indicated a negative sensitivity towards the Stefan blowing parameter. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.