Heat Transfer—Asian Res. 2020;1–19. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1 Received: 18 October 2019 | Revised: 4 December 2019 | Accepted: 23 December 2019 DOI: 10.1002/htj.21666 RESEARCH ARTICLE A computational study of unsteady radiative magnetohydrodynamic Blasius and Sakiadis flow with leading‐edge accretion (ablation) Fazle Mabood 1 | Waqar A. Khan 2 1 Department of Information Technology, Fanshawe College, London, Ontario, Canada 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Correspondence F. Mabood, Department of Information Technology, Fanshawe College 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd, London, ON N5Y 5R6, Canada. Email: mabood1971@yahoo.com Abstract The present study investigates the influence of the magnetic field, thermal radiation, Prandtl number, and leading‐edge accretion/ablation on Blasius and Sakiadis flow. The convective boundary condition is employed to investigate the heat transfer. The nondimensional governing boundary layer equations have been solved by the homotopy analysis method for different values of the pertinent parameters. The effects of these para- meters on the dimensionless velocity, temperature, skin friction, and Nusselt number are also investigated for various values of relevant parameters affecting the flow and heat transfer phenomena. The most relevant outcomes of the present study are that enhancement in magnetic field strength undermines the flow velocity establishing thinner velocity boundary layer for both Blasius and Sakiadis flows while an increase in accretion/ablation effect at leading‐edge manifests in a deceleration in velocity for Blasius case and the opposite trend is observed for Sakiadis flow. Another important outcome is that an increase in radiation and accretion/ ablation at leading‐edge upsurges the fluid temperature leading to enhancement in the thermal boundary layer. For both Blasius and Sakiadis flow, the skin friction coefficient and the heat transfer rate decline with the enhancement of the leading‐edge accretion parameter.