Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2010 (2010), Article ID 586340, 15 pages
doi:10.1155/2010/586340
Research Article

A New Approach for the Solution of Three-Dimensional Magnetohydrodynamic Rotating Flow over a Shrinking Sheet

S. S. Motsa1 and S. Shateyi2

1Department of Mathematics, University of Swaziland, Private Bag 4, Kwaluseni M201, Swaziland
2Department of Mathematics, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0950, South Africa

Received 19 June 2010; Accepted 3 November 2010

Academic Editor: K. Vajravelu

Copyright © 2010 S. S. Motsa and S. Shateyi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The numerical solution of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and rotating flow over a porous shrinking sheet is obtained by the new approach known as spectral homotopy analysis method (SHAM). Using a similarity transformation, the governing equations for the momentum are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations and are solved by the SHAM approach to determine velocity distributions and shear stress variations for different governing parameters. The SHAM results are analysed and validated against numerical results obtained using MATLAB's built-in bvp4c routine, and good agreement is observed.