Two Dimensional Unsteady Laminar Flow of Power Law Fluids Past a Square Cylinder: A Numerical Study

Author(s):  
Akhilesh K. Sahu ◽  
Raj P. Chhabra ◽  
V. Eswaran

The two-dimensional and unsteady flow of power-law fluids past a long square cylinder has been investigated numerically in the range of conditions 60 ≤ Re ≤ 160 and 0.5 ≤ n ≤ 2.0. Over this range of Reynolds numbers, the flow is periodic in time for Newtonian fluids. However, no such information is available for power law fluids. A semi-explicit finite volume method has been used on a non-uniform collocated grid arrangement to solve the governing equations. The macroscopic quantities such as drag coefficients, Strouhal number, lift coefficient as well as the detailed kinematic variables like stream function, vorticity and so on, have been calculated as functions of the pertinent dimension-less groups. In particular, the effects of Reynolds number and of the power-law index have been investigated in the unsteady laminar flow regime. The leading edge separation in shear-thinning fluids produces an increase in drag values with the increasing Reynolds number, while shear-thickening behaviour delays the leading edge separation. So, the drag coefficient in the above-mentioned range of Reynolds number, Re, in shear-thinning fluids (n < 1) initially decreases but at high values of the Reynolds number, it increases. As expected, on the other hand, in case of shear-thickening fluids (n > 1) drag coefficient reduces with Reynolds number, Re. Furthermore, the present results also suggest the transition from steady to unsteady flow conditions to occur at lower Reynolds numbers in shear-thickening fluids than that in Newtonian fluids. Also, the spectra of lift signal for shear-thickening fluids show that the flow is truly periodic in nature with a single dominant frequency in the above range of Reynolds number. In shear-thinning fluids at higher Re, quasi-periodicity sets in with additional frequencies, which indicate the transition from the 2-D to 3-D flows.

2014 ◽  
Vol 751 ◽  
pp. 184-215
Author(s):  
Liyan Yu ◽  
John Hinch

AbstractWe study the solitary wave solutions in a thin film of a power-law fluid coating a vertical fibre. Different behaviours are observed for shear-thickening and shear-thinning fluids. For shear-thickening fluids, the solitary waves are larger and faster when the reduced Bond number is smaller. For shear-thinning fluids, two branches of solutions exist for a certain range of the Bond number, where the solitary waves are larger and faster on one and smaller and slower on the other as the Bond number decreases. We carry out an asymptotic analysis for the large and fast-travelling solitary waves to explain how their speeds and amplitudes change with the Bond number. The analysis is then extended to examine the stability of the two branches of solutions for the shear-thinning fluids.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Izadpanah Ehsan ◽  
Sefid Mohammad ◽  
Nazari Mohammad Reza ◽  
Jafarizade Ali ◽  
Ebrahim Sharifi Tashnizi

Two-dimensional laminar flow of a power-law fluid passing two square cylinders in a tandem arrangement is numerically investigated in the ranges of 1< Re< 200 and 1 ≤ G ≤ 9. The fluid viscosity power-law index lies in the range 0.5 ≤ n ≤ 1.8, which covers shear-thinning, Newtonian and shear-thickening fluids. A finite volume code based on the SIMPLEC algorithm with nonstaggered grid is used. In order to discretize the convective and diffusive terms, the third order QUICK and the second-order central difference scheme are used, respectively. The influence of the power-law index, Reynolds number and gap ratio on the drag coefficient, Strouhal number and streamlines are investigated, and the results are compared with other studies in the literature to validate the methodology. The effect of the time integration scheme on accuracy and computational time is also analyzed. In the ranges of Reynolds number and power-law index studied here, vortex shedding is known to occur for square cylinders in tandem. This study represents the first systematic investigation of this phenomenon for non-Newtonian fluids in the open literature. In comparison to Newtonian fluids, it is found that the onset of leading edge separation occurs at lower Reynolds number for shear-thinning fluids and is delayed to larger values for shear-thickening fluids.


2008 ◽  
Vol 613 ◽  
pp. 411-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIANGANG ZHAO ◽  
ROGER E. KHAYAT

The flow of an impinging non-Newtonian jet onto a solid flat plate is examined theoretically in this study. Similarity solutions are sought for both shear-thinning and shear-thickening fluids of the power-law type. The jet is assumed to spread out in a thin layer bounded by a hydraulic jump. In addition to the stagnation-flow region, the flow domain is divided into three main regions: a developing boundary layer, fully viscous boundary layer and hydraulic jump. The anomalous behaviour of power-law fluids at small shear rate is remedied by seeking a two-layer solution in each domain. Such anomalies include the singularity of viscosity for shear-thinning fluids, and the vanishing of viscosity as well the overshoot in velocity for shear-thickening fluids. Although the rate of shear-thinning appears to affect significantly the film profile and velocity, only the overall viscosity influences the position of the hydraulic jump.


Author(s):  
Nariman Ashrafi ◽  
Habib Karimi Haghighi

The effects of nonlinearities on the stability are explored for shear thickening fluids in the narrow-gap limit of the Taylor-Couette flow. It is assumed that shear-thickening fluids behave exactly as opposite of shear thinning ones. A dynamical system is obtained from the conservation of mass and momentum equations which include nonlinear terms in velocity components due to the shear-dependent viscosity. It is found that the critical Taylor number, corresponding to the loss of stability of Couette flow becomes higher as the shear-thickening effects increases. Similar to the shear thinning case, the Taylor vortex structure emerges in the shear thickening flow, however they quickly disappear thus bringing the flow back to the purely azimuthal flow. Naturally, one expects shear thickening fluids to result in inverse dynamical behavior of shear thinning fluids. This study proves that this is not the case for every point on the bifurcation diagram.


1991 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyuro Sasaki ◽  
Masaru Kiya

This paper describes the results of a flow visualization study which concerns three-dimensional vortex structures in a leading-edge separation bubble formed along the sides of a blunt flat plate. Dye and hydrogen bubbles were used as tracers. Reynolds number (Re), based on the plate thickness, was varied from 80 to 800. For 80 < Re < 320, the separated shear layer remains laminar up to the reattachment line without significant spanwise distortion of vortex filaments. For 320 < Re < 380, a Λ-shaped deformation of vortex filaments appears shortly downstream of the reattachment and is arranged in-phase in the downstream direction. For Re > 380, hairpin-like structures are formed and arranged in a staggered manner. The longitudinal and spanwise distances of the vortex arrangement are presented as functions of the Reynolds number.


2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio L. D. Kfuri ◽  
Edson J. Soares ◽  
Roney L. Thompson ◽  
Renato N. Siqueira

Industrial processes with non-Newtonian fluids are common in many segments such as petroleum, cosmetic, and food industries. Slurries, emulsions, and gas–liquid dispersions are some examples with industrial relevance. When a fluid flows in a pipe system, pressure losses are always present. For Newtonian fluids, a quite reasonable understanding of this phenomenon was already achieved and is available in the literature. The same cannot be stated for non-Newtonian fluids owing to their complex characteristics, such as pseudoplasticity, viscoplasticity, elasticity, and thixotropy. The understanding of the influence of these characteristics on flow behavior is very important in order to design efficient pipeline systems. The design of such systems requires the estimation of the pressure drop due to friction effects. However, there are few works regarding friction losses for non-Newtonian fluids in pipeline systems, making this task a difficult one. In this study, two classes of fluids are investigated and compared with the Newtonian results. The first category of fluids are the ones that exhibits pseudoplastic behavior and can be modeled as a power-law fluid, and the second category are the ones that possesses a yield stress and can be modeled as a Bingham fluid. Polyflow was used to compute the friction losses in both abrupt contractions and expansions laminar flow conditions. It shows that for the expansion cases, the aspect ratio affects more the local friction coefficients than for the contraction cases. The influence of the power index n on local friction losses is similar for both cases, abrupt contractions and abrupt expansions. At low Reynolds numbers, dilatant fluids present the lowest values of the friction coefficient, K, independent of geometry. At high Reynolds numbers, a reversal of the curves occurs, and the dilatant fluid presents larger values of K coefficient. For the cases investigated, there is also a Reynolds number in which all the curves exhibit the same value of K for any value of the power-law index. The effect of τy′ shows a different behavior between contractions and expansions. In the case of contractions, the material with the highest dimensionless yield stress has the highest K value. In the case of the expansions, the behavior is the opposite, i.e., the higher the yield stress, the lower is the values of the K coefficient. Equations for each accessory as a function of the rheological parameters of the fluid and the Reynolds number of the flow are also proposed. The data were adjusted according to two main equations: the two Ks method proposed by Hooper (1981, “The Two-K Method Predicts Head Losses in Pipe Fittings,” Chem. Eng., 81, pp. 96–100.) is used for all the contractions cases, and the equation proposed by Oliveira et al. (1997, “A General Correlation for the Local Coefficient in Newtonian Axisymmetric Sudden Expansions,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, 19(6), pp. 655–660.) is used for all the expansions cases. The equations found were compared with the numerical results and showed satisfactory precision and thus can be used for engineering applications.


Author(s):  
Nariman Ashrafi ◽  
Habib Karimi Haghighi

The effects of nonlinearities on the stability are explored for shear thickening fluids in the narrow-gap limit of the Taylor-Couette flow. A dynamical system is obtained from the conservation of mass and momentum equations which include nonlinear terms in velocity components due to the shear-dependent viscosity. It is found that the critical Taylor number, corresponding to the loss of stability of Couette flow becomes higher as the shear-thickening effects increases. Similar to the shear thinning case, the Taylor vortex structure emerges in the shear thickening flow; however they quickly disappear thus bringing the flow back to the purely azimuthal flow. Naturally, one expects shear thickening fluids to result in inverse dynamical behavior of shear thinning fluids. This study proves that this is not the case for every point on the bifurcation diagram.


2017 ◽  
Vol 826 ◽  
pp. 918-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Bougouin ◽  
L. Lacaze ◽  
T. Bonometti

Experiments on the collapse of non-colloidal and neutrally buoyant particles suspended in a Newtonian fluid column are presented, in which the initial volume fraction of the suspension $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$, the viscosity of the interstitial fluid $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{f}$, the diameter of the particles $d$ and the mixing protocol, i.e. the initial preparation of the suspension, are varied. The temporal evolution of the slumping current highlights two main regimes: (i) an inertial-dominated regime followed by (ii) a viscous-dominated regime. The inertial regime is characterized by a constant-speed slumping which is shown to scale as in the case of a classical inertial dam-break. The viscous-dominated regime is observed as a decreasing-speed phase of the front evolution. Lubrication models for Newtonian and power-law fluids describe most of situations encountered in this regime, which strongly depends on the suspension parameters. The temporal evolution of the propagating front is used to extract the rheological parameters of the fluid models. At the early stages of the viscous-dominated regime, a constant effective shear viscosity, referred to as an apparent Newtonian viscous regime, is found to depend only on $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{f}$ for each mixing protocol. The obtained values are shown to be well fitted by the Krieger–Dougherty model whose parameters involved, say a critical volume fraction $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{m}$ and the exponent of divergence, depend on the mixing protocol, i.e. the microscale interaction between particles. On a longer time scale which depends on $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$, the front evolution is shown to slightly deviate from the apparent Newtonian model. In this apparent non-Newtonian viscous regime, the power-law model, indicating both shear-thinning and shear-thickening behaviours, is shown to be more appropriate to describe the front evolution. The present experiments indicate that the mixing protocol plays a crucial role in the selection of a shear-thinning or shear-thickening type of collapse, while the particle diameter $d$ and volume fraction $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ play a significant role in the shear-thickening case. In all cases, the normalized effective consistency of the power-law fluid model is found to be a unique function of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$. Finally, an apparent viscoplastic regime, characterized by a finite length spreading reached at finite time, is observed at high $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$. This regime is mostly observed for volume fractions larger than $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{m}$ and up to a volume fraction $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{M}$ close to the random close packing fraction at which the initial column remains undeformed on opening the gate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 5938-5960
Author(s):  
A. Kouadri ◽  
Y. Lasbet ◽  
M. Makhlouf

In a recent study, the Two-Layer Crossing Channels Micromixer (TLCCM) exhibited good mixing capacities in the case of the Newtonian fluids (close to 100%) for all considered Reynolds number values. However, since the majority of the used fluids in the industrial sectors are non-Newtonians, this work details the mixing evolution of power-law fluids in the considered geometry. In this paper, the power-law index ranges from 0.73 to 1 and the generalized Reynolds number is bounded between 0.1 and 50. The conservation equations of momentum, mass and species transport are numerically solved using a CFD code, considering the species transport model. The flow structure at the cross-sectional planes of our micromixer was studied using the dynamic systems theory. The evolutions of the intensity, also the axial, radial and tangential velocity profiles were examined for different values of the Reynolds number and the power-law index. Besides, the pressure drop of the power-law fluids under different Reynolds number was calculated and represented. Furthermore, the mixing efficiency is evaluated by the computation of the mixing index (MI), based on the standard deviation of the mass fraction in different cross-sections. In such geometry, a perfect mixing is achieved with MI closed to 99.47 %, at very small Reynolds number (from the value 0.1) whatever the power-law index and generalized Reynolds numbers taken in this investigation. Consequently, the targeted channel presents a useful tool for pertinent mass transfer improvements, it is highly recommended to include it in various microfluidic systems.


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