STABILITY OF MULTILAYER POWER LAW AND SECOND-ORDER FLUIDS IN PLANE POISEUILLE FLOW

Abstract

Abstract An interfacial stability analysis for two superposed inelastic power law and elastic second-order fluids in plane poiseuille flow has been carried out utilizing both asymptotic and spectral based numerical techniques. The effect of viscosity, density, depth and elasticity ratio have been investigated. Our results indicate that shear thinning viscosity and elasticity play an important role in determining the interfacial stability at all wave numbers. Computational results also show the possibility of obtaining stable interfaces at all disturbance wavelengths. This suggests that operating diagrams for stable flow of multilayer polymeric fluids could be constructed based on this analysis. KEYWORDS: Interfacial stabilityPolymeric fluidsMultiphase flowPlane poiseuille. Additional informationNotes on contributorsB. KHOMAMI The author to whom correspondence should be addressed.