Numerical studies for flow and heat transfer of the Powell–Eyring fluid thin film over an unsteady stretching sheet with internal heat generation using the Chebyshev finite difference method

An analysis is carried out to study the unsteady two-dimensional Powell–Eyring flow and heat transfer to a laminar liquid film from a horizontal stretching surface in the presence of internal heat generation. The flow of a thin fluid film and subsequent heat transfer from the stretching surface is investigated with the aid of a similarity transformation. The transformation enables to reduce the unsteady boundary layer equations to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. A numerical solution of the resulting nonlinear differential equations is found by using an efficient Chebyshev finite difference method. A comparison of numerical results is made with the earlier published results for limiting cases. The effects of the governing parameters on the flow and thermal fields are thoroughly examined and discussed.