Purpose The growing demands for efficient cooling systems, lubrication and anti-friction properties motivate the investigation of advanced heat transfer in fluid dynamics. The purpose of this study is to investigate the convective flow of ternary hybrid nanofluids around a vertical cylinder, considering the effects of a porous medium, magnetic field, thermal radiation, viscous dissipation and Darcy–Forchheimer influence on heat transfer and fluid velocity. Design/methodology/approach Introduce the similarity transformations to reduce the system of governing partial differential equations (PDEs) to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs), which are then converted into linear first-order ODEs. The bvp4c solver in MATLAB is used to crack the transformed ODEs and for the graphical illustrations. Findings The combined effects of radiation, Biot number and Eckert number significantly enhance the heat transfer capabilities of ternary hybrid nanofluids, achieving a 17.533% improvement over nanofluids alone. The effects of porosity, Darcy–Forchheimer influence and the magnetic field on fluid motion and skin friction are also investigated and presented in detail. This study has broad applications in cooling systems for power plants, as well as in anti-friction properties for transportation, automotive, precision machinery, robotics engineering and lubrication in rotating machinery, polymers and textile engineering. Originality/value From the literature survey, it is noted that the simultaneous effects of magnetic field, thermal radiation, viscous dissipation and convective boundary conditions on Darcy–Forchheimer flow of ternary hybrid nanofluids around a vertical cylinder have not been investigated so far, and this study addresses this gap. Further, the results are validated and compared with the existing results as a special case.
D et al. (2026) studied this question.