EFFECTS OF MELTING ON THE COMBINED CONVECTION OF A HYBRID NANOFLUID FLOW THROUGH A VERTICAL SURFACE IN A POROUS MATERIAL

Effects of the melting phenomenon on combined (natural and forced) convection flow adjacent to a vertical plate within a saturated porous medium filled with hybrid nanoparticles such as copper and aluminum, later serving as base fluid, are investigated in this work. The mathematical modeling of the problem reduced the nonlinear partial differential equations into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations through similarity transformation. Solutions to these boundary value problems are obtained using the shooting method in Maple software for various values of the concentration of hybrid nanoparticles, mixed (natural and forced) convection parameter, and melting parameter. Results indicate that the solution has two branches within a specific range of the above parameters. Additionally, findings reveal that the process of solid-liquid phase transition enhances the thermal conductivity of hybrid nanofluids and expedites the expansion of boundary layers.