Unsteady mixed convection of a micropolar fluid past a circular cylinder due to time-dependent free stream velocity and temperature

Unsteady mixed convection boundary-layer flow of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid past a circular cylinder is investigated taking into account the effect of thermal radiation and heat generation or absorption. The reduced non-similar boundary-layer equations are solved using the finite difference method. It is found that the magnitude of the friction factor and the couple stress significantly increases due to the increase of the mixed convection parameter, the conduction-radiation parameter, the surface temperature parameter, the heat absorption parameter and the frequency parameter. However the magnitude of the heat transfer rate decreases with these parameters. The converse characteristics are observed for the Prandtl number. The magnitude of the couple stress and the heat transfer rate is seen to decrease whereas the magnitude of the skin factor increases with increasing the vortex viscosity parameter. The magnetic field parameter reduces the skin factor, couple stress and heat transfer rate. The amplitude of oscillation of the transient skin factor and couple stress gradually increases owing to an increase of ξ. But the transient heat transfer rate is found to be oscillating with almost the same amplitude for any value of ξ. The amplitude of oscillation of the transient skin factor and couple stress increases with an increase of S and ξ while the amplitude of the transient heat transfer rate increases with increasing Pr and S.