Numerical simulation of MHD two‐dimensional flow incorporated with joule heating and nonlinear thermal radiation

Abstract The current investigation presents a numerical simulation of boundary layer flow with heat transfer. The study primarily emphasizes heat generation due to the influence of nonlinear thermal radiation. Moreover, the simultaneous effects of Joule heating and viscous dissipation have been incorporated for the thermal enhancement of the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) on the convective boundary layer flow over a flat plate. Dimensional analysis is brought into use to determine the hydro and thermal boundary layer thickness for the two‐dimensional flow. Subsequently, the application of the suitable similarity transformation yields a nonlinear coupled flow problem with is solved numerically with the help of the Runge–Kutta Fehlberg (RKF) method incorporated with the Shooting technique. Moreover, this theoretical study highlights the immense mechanical and aeronautical applications of thermal radiation. In view of computational findings and simulating results, linear and nonlinear thermal radiation effects can also be investigated on fluids passing through a cylinder and channels. Finally, computational data tabulated against some pertinent parameters and parametric study reveal that non‐linear thermal radiation is more effective for highly viscous fluids.