Abstract
In this article, the authors analyzed the effect of thermal conductivity on unsteady magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) free convection in a micro-polar fluid past a semi-infinite vertical porous plate. The fluid thermal conductivity is assumed to vary as a linear function of temperature. By using the Chebyshev collocation method in the spatial direction and the Crank-Nicolson method in the time direction, the boundary layer equations are transformed into a linear algebraic system. There are several material parameters whose affect on the flow have been studied, for instance, thermal conductivity, radiation, magnetic, micro-polar, suction (or injection) parameters, and Prandtl number. Boundary layer and Boussineq approximations have been introduced together to describe the flow field. The domain of the problem is discretized according to the Chebyshev collocation scheme. The numerical results show that, the values of velocity, angular velocity and temperature profiles approach to the steady state when the time reach to infinity. However, the friction factor has been found to increase as micro-polar and thermal conductivity parameters increase. But it decreases as magnetic parameter increases. Meanwhile, Nusselt number increases as thermal conductivity parameter increases, and vice versa with the micro-polar parameter. Moreover, the local couple stress has been found to decrease as micro-polar and thermal conductivity parameters increase. On the other hand, it increases as magnetic parameter increases.