Viscoelastic sink flow in a wedge for the UCM and Oldroyd-B models
Abstract
The steady planar sink flow through wedges of angle π / α with α ≥ 1 / 2 of the upper convected Maxwell (UCM) and Oldroyd-B fluids is considered. The local asymptotic structure near the wedge apex is shown to comprise an outer core flow region together with thin elastic boundary layers at the wedge walls. A class of similarity solutions is described for the outer core flow in which the streamlines are straight lines giving stress and velocity singularities of O (r- 2) and O (r- 1), respectively, where r ≪ 1 is the distance from the wedge apex. These solutions are matched to wall boundary layer equations which recover viscometric behaviour and are subsequently also solved using a similarity solution. The boundary layers are shown to be of thickness O (r2), their size being independent of the wedge angle. The parametric solution of this structure is determined numerically in terms of the volume flux Q and the pressure coefficient p0, both of which are assumed furnished by the flow away from the wedge apex in the r = O (1) region. The solutions as described are sufficiently general to accommodate a wide variety of external flows from the far-field r = O (1) region. Recirculating regions are implicitly assumed to be absent. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Publication Title
Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics
Recommended Citation
Evans, J., & Hagen, T. (2008). Viscoelastic sink flow in a wedge for the UCM and Oldroyd-B models. Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 154 (1), 39-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnnfm.2008.02.003
