The magnetohydrodynamic technique has a positive impact upon the reduction of the unsteady flow forces, and a negative effect on the thermal performance. Adding nanoparticles to the base fluid is a common technique for thermal-performance improvement that can lead to an increase in drag forces. This paper is an attempt to control and optimize the interactions between two techniques by response surface methodology for nanofluid flow around a triangular obstacle. Also, a sensitivity analysis is performed to determine which parameters are the key drivers of a model’s results. Orientations of the obstacle, Stuart number, and volumetric concentration of nanoparticles are selected as the operational parameters. A finite volume method with computational fluid dynamics techniques is used to solve the governing equations. The ranges of Stuart number N, orientations of the triangular obstacle θ, and volumetric concentration of nanoparticles φ are 0–5, 0–60 deg, and 0–0.05, respectively. The Reynolds number Re is fixed at Re
100. The obtained results indicate that the Nusselt number Nu is more sensitive to the Stuart number rather than the orientations of the obstacle or the volumetric concentration of nanoparticles. Also, the optimized parameters for theminimumdrag coefficient CD areN
0.1697, θ
54.543 deg, and φ
0.0225. These values for the maximum Nusselt number are N
0, θ
35.151 deg, and φ
0.05.

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