An analysis is performed to investigate the effects of variable viscosity and thermal
conductivity on the two-dimensional steady flow of an electrically conducting,
incompressible, upper-convected Maxwell fluid in the presence of a transverse magnetic
field and heat generation or absorption. The governing system of partial differential
equations is transformed into a system of coupled nonlinear ordinary
differential equations, and is solved numerically. Velocity and temperature fields
have been computed and shown graphically for various values of the physical parameters.
The local skin-friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number have been
tabulated. It is found that fluid velocity decreases with an increase in the viscosity
parameter and the Deborah number. It is also observed that increasing the magnetic
parameter leads to a fall in the velocity and a rise in the temperature. Furthermore,
it is shown that the temperature increases due to increasing the values of the thermal
conductivity parameter and the heat generation parameter, while it decreases with
an increase of both the absolute value of the heat absorption parameter and the
Prandtl number.