Impinging flow of a special third-grade nanofluid streaming over a porous receding sheet using the tri-temperature model

The heat transfer characterisation of the three-phase local thermal non-equilibrium analysis due to the nanofluid (solid particle phase and the base fluid phase) and the absorbing phase (due to the porous surface) is performed for a third-grade nanofluid impinging over a receding surface. The mathematical formulation of the physical model includes the Rivlin–Ericksen tensor for fluids of grade three with appropriate restriction to viscous flows and also incorporates the Buongiorno nanofluid model for studying the impact of thermophoresis and Brownian motion. The resultant governing time-dependent partial differential equations has been converted to ordinary differential equations by applying similarity transformation. The computational results are obtained using the finite-difference approach in the Matlab software. The non-Newtonian and the time-dependent flow phenomena demands an additional boundary condition to ensure the uniqueness of the solution. With a general third-grade assumption with the wall shrinking and unsteadiness, the resultant equations govern the occurrence of dual solution in the obtained numerical results. The stability investigation reports the existence of multiple (dual) solutions due to the unsteadiness imparted in the flow and the flow behaviour of both the stable and unstable solutions are revealed. The boundary layer characteristics are explored for various vital physical parameters, such as material parameter, porous permeability parameter, Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter, inter-phase heat transfer coefficient, modified thermal capacity ratio, modified thermal diffusivity ratio and buoyancy ratio parameter. The temperature distribution across different phases is analysed for the stable solutions.