Abstract
In this paper, the study the momentum and heat transfer characteristics in an incompressible electrically conducting non‐Newtonian boundary layer flow of a viscoelastic fluid over a stretching sheet. The partial differential equations governing the flow and heat transfer characteristics are converted into highly nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations by similarity transformations.
The resultant coupled highly nonlinear ordinary differential equations are solved by means of, homotopy analysis method (HAM) for constructing an approximate solution of heat transfer in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) viscoelastic boundary layer flow over a stretching sheet with non‐uniform heat source.
The proposed method is a strong and easy to use analytic tool for nonlinear problems and does not need small parameters in the equations. The HAM solutions contain an auxiry parameter, which provides a convenient way of controlling the convergence region of series solutions. The results obtained here reveal that the proposed method is very effective and simple for solving nonlinear evolution equations. The method is straightforward and concise, and it can also be applied to other nonlinear evolution equations in physics. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.