Analytical Solutions for Unsteady Thin Film Flow with Internal Heating and Radiation

Abstract

This study determines Lie point symmetries for differential equations that mathematically express a time-dependent thin film fluid flow with internal heating and thermal radiation to construct invariants. These invariants are used in the derivation of similarity transformations for reducing the flow equations into systems of equations that possess only one independent variable. The homotopy analysis method is employed to analytically solve the reduced system of equations. The new similarity transformations and the corresponding analytical solutions comprehensively consider flow dynamics and heat transfer under multiple physical conditions. These solutions are presented graphically to demonstrate the effects of variations in the radiative heat flux with internal heating on the flow dynamics and heat transfer properties. Moreover, the variations in fluid dynamics are described graphically using the obtained analytical homotopy solution under different values of the unsteadiness parameter and Prandtl number.