Influence of Suction and Porous Medium on MHD Thermal Transport of a Non-Newtonian Ternary Hybrid Nanofluid over a Nonlinearly Stretching Surface

Abstract

This study investigates the momentum and thermal transport characteristics of a ternary hybrid non-Newtonian Maxwell fluid containing spherical Ag–Cu–TiO₂ nanoparticles dispersed in kerosene oil. The flow is considered over a nonlinearly stretching flexible sheet embedded in a porous medium under the combined effects of wall suction, an externally applied magnetic field, and buoyancy. Appropriate similarity transformations are employed to reduce the governing nonlinear partial differential equations for momentum and energy into a coupled system of ordinary differential equations, which is subsequently solved numerically using the MATLAB bvp4c solver. The effects of the Maxwell relaxation parameter, magnetic parameter M, buoyancy parameter, Prandtl number Pr, porous-medium parameter K, suction parameter S, and inclination angle are systematically examined. The numerical results demonstrate that increasing M suppresses the velocity field while enhancing the temperature distribution because of the increased Lorentz-force resistance. Over the investigated magnetic-parameter range, the velocity decreases, whereas the temperature increases. Increasing the porous-medium parameter K similarly reduces the velocity and enhances the temperature distribution; quantitatively, the corresponding changes, respectively. In contrast, increasing the Maxwell relaxation-time parameter enhances the velocity throughout the boundary layer, while increasing the inclination angle from =0 to ℼ/2 produces a continuous acceleration of the flow. The Ag/kerosene-oil nanofluid exhibits a consistently higher velocity than the Ag–Cu/kerosene-oil hybrid nanofluid, whereas the latter produces a higher temperature distribution. The surface-transport characteristics further reveal that increasing K raises the wall shear-stress coefficient and reduces the Nusselt number. Likewise, increasing Pr enhances the wall shear coefficient, while the reduced Nusselt number decreases accordingly. Stronger wall suction further restricts the thermal boundary-layer thickness. These findings demonstrate that magnetic forcing, porous-medium resistance, viscoelastic relaxation, inclination, suction, and thermal diffusivity provide effective mechanisms for controlling momentum and heat transfer in nanoparticle-enhanced Maxwell fluids, highlighting their potential for advanced thermal-management and energy-conversion applications.