Comparative analysis on non-linear radiative heat transfer on MHD Casson nanofluid past a thin needle Basma Souayeh a , M. Gnaneswara Reddy b , P. Sreenivasulu c , T. Poornima d , Mohammad Rahimi-Gorji e,f , Ibrahim M. Alarifi g, ⁎ a Physics Department, College of Science, King Faisal University, PO Box 380, Alahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia b Department of Mathematics, Acharya Nagarjuna University Campus, Ongole 523 001, A.P., India c Department of Humanities and Sciences, SVEW, Tirupati 517 507, A.P., India d Department of Mathematics, SAS, VIT University, Vellore 632014, T.N., India e Experimental Surgery Lab, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Ghent University, Belgium f Biofluid, Tissue and Solid Mechanics for Medical Applications Lab (IBiTech-bioMMeda), Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium g Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, Majmaah University, Al-Majmaah 11952, Saudi Arabia abstract article info Article history: Received 4 February 2019 Received in revised form 23 March 2019 Accepted 26 March 2019 Available online 30 March 2019 The aim of this work is scrutinizing the consequences of non-linear radiation on MHD Casson nanofluid along thin needle. The situation has been mathematically modelled taking into account the thermo-diffuso and diffuso- thermo effects. Here two types of surfaces are dealt; one is fixed needle and other is moving needle. The Prandtl boundary layer equations are enclosed and solved numerically using similarity variables. Impact of different material parameters on the momentum, temperature and species concentration along with the quantities related engineering aspects like skin friction coefficient, rate of energy transfer and Sherwood number are obtained and illustrated through graphs. A comparison examination is made between studied Casson nanoflow usage makes the environment cool, reduces the friction at the surface. But Newtonian nanofluid is good for species diffusion. Numerical obtained so- lutions are contrasted with the published literature and found to be in nice agreement. The present exploration ex- hibits the prominent features in hybrid solar magneto-hydrodynamic nanofluid systems and aircraft technology. © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Non-linear thermal radiation Magnetohydrodynamic Rheological fluid Casson Nanofluid Thin needle 1. Introduction Axisymmetric boundary layer flow and heat transfer process has more importance because of its industrial and technological processes. One type of axisymmetric flow is thin needles. A slandering object with parabolic revolution is thin needle geometry. The flow is axisym- metric in this case and the boundary layers are closer to the diameter of the slendering cylinder. Slendering needle with irregular thickness gained much realistic importance now a days as it shows a trending change in the field of biomimetics including blood flow problems, can- cer treatment, metal spinning, aerodynamics, small measuring equip- ment manufacturing etc. Lawrence [1] represented this work first. Now, Sulochana et al. [2] studied the Brownian and thermophoresis ef- fect on MHD Sakiadis flow towards thin needle. Radiation influence on magnetohydrodynamic on Sakiadis and Blasius nanofluids past hori- zontal needle was investigated by Mohan Krishna et al. [3]. The above work was extended to ferrofluid by Sulochana et al. [4]. Salleh et al. [5] examined mixed convection ferrofluid and did stability analysis also. Ishak et al. [6] investigated the work of moving thin needle in a par- allel free stream. Mixed convective flow for thin needles for both assisting and opposing flows was done by Ahmad et al. [7]. They contin- ued the work taking varying heat flux [8]. Trimbitas et al. [9] studied mixed convective boundary flow of nanofluids past thin needle. Bhatti et al. performed many researches in this field [10–15]. Brownian motion and thermophoresis are the two main concepts for abnormal enhancement of thermal conductivity while using the binary fluids i.e., base fluid with nanoparticles. This model helps the engineers and scientists due to its wide applications in the phenomena of science and technology. Thermophoresis particle deposition along Brownian motion principle helps in manufacturing communication engineering silicon and germanium dioxide optical fibers. Reddy et al. [16] examined the thermophoresis and Brownian motion effect on nanoflow past a horizontal circular cylinder. Sucharitha et al. [17] discussed the impact of Brownian motion and thermophoretic on slip nanoflow past sym- metric channel. The same effect with thermal stratification on a nanofluid was reported by Kandasamy et al. [18]. Khan et al. [19] inves- tigated the feature of second grade mixed convective across a stretching sheet. Ramana Reddy et al. [20] inspected the motion of nanoparticles and thermophoretic consequences on an unsteady nanofluid. Journal of Molecular Liquids 284 (2019) 163–174 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, Majmaah University, Al-Majmaah, 11952, Saudi Arabia. E-mail addresses: bsouayeh@kfu.edu.sa (B. Souayeh), mgrmaths@gmail.com (M.G. Reddy), psreddysvu11@gmail.com (P. Sreenivasulu), poonima.anand@gmail.com (T. Poornima), mohammad.rahimigorji@ugent.be, m69.rahimi@yahoo.com (M. Rahimi-Gorji), i.alarifi@mu.edu.sa (I.M. Alarifi). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2019.03.151 0167-7322/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Molecular Liquids journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/molliq