Comparative study of graphene, copper, and ferrous sulfate nanoparticles in radiative nanofluid flow over a porous curved cylinder

This work examines how curvature, nonlinear radiation, wall heating conditions, and the permeability of porous material impact flow and heat transfer of nanofluids over a cylindrical surface. We studied three different types of nanoparticles: Ferrous Sulfate, copper, and graphene. This showed how momentum and energy transfer are influenced by thermophysical properties. We changed the governing equations into dimensionless form and solved them with numerical methods. This method helped us understand how velocity, temperature, skin friction, and Nusselt number react across a wide range of parameters. The results show that increasing the power-law index noticeably improves skin friction and heat transfer rates due to stronger convective acceleration. Larger curvature values reduce the thickness of both the velocity and thermal boundary layers, which improves transport efficiency. In contrast, higher wall-to-ambient temperature ratios cause more energy to accumulate near the surface. Heat transfer has decreased, and the thermal boundary layer is thickened consequently. Higher shear stresses and sharper velocity gradients result from this. Graphene showed better performance than other nanoparticles used, as its superconductivity provides better thermal performance. The obtained results uncover that graphene-based nanofluid attains the highest skin friction and Nusselt number coefficients, surpassing ferrous sulfate and copper by about 18–25% under similar conditions.