Heat transfer characteristics of radiative MHD Jeffrey nanofluid flow in a wavy channel: Role of the base fluid ratio and nanoparticle interactions

The present study numerically investigates unsteady magnetohydrodynamic flow and heat transfer of a Jeffrey nanofluid in a wavy channel. Unlike existing studies, the present work incorporates the combined effects of oscillatory unsteady flow, wavy channel geometry, radiation absorption, and nanoparticle interaction parameters such as radius and interparticle spacing within a Jeffrey nanofluid framework. The effects of magnetic field, radiation absorption, nanoparticle radius, interparticle spacing, and the base fluid–nanoparticle property ratio are examined. The governing nonlinear equations for momentum, temperature, and concentration are formulated using appropriate thermophysical relations and the Cogley approximation for radiative heat flux. The resulting non-dimensional equations are solved using an implicit Crank–Nicolson method. The results show that velocity increases with increasing interparticle spacing, a higher conductivity ratio and a larger Jeffrey parameter, while it decreases under a stronger magnetic field and a higher nanoparticle concentration. For example, the velocity increases from 0.0687 to 0.0783 as the Jeffrey parameter increases from 0.3 to 0.9. Temperature increases significantly with radiation absorption and heat generation, with the temperature profile increasing from 0.6115 to 0.7999 as the heat generation parameter increases from 0.2 to 0.8. In contrast, concentration decreases with increasing chemical reaction and Schmidt number. The concentration profile decreases from 0.2393 to 0.2357 with increasing thermal parameter, indicating reduced mass transfer. Additionally, increasing the ethylene glycol concentration from 0% to 50% reduces temperature by about 4%–6%, indicating a decline in heat transfer capability. These findings highlight the potential of Jeffery nanofluids for biomedical transport, polymer processing, and thermal management.