| Abstract: | The steady flow inside a spatially modulated channel is examined for shear‐thinning and shear‐thickening fluids. The flow is induced by the translation of the lower plate. The modulation amplitude is assumed to be small. A regular perturbation expansion of the flow field is used, coupled to a variable‐step finite‐difference scheme, to solve the problem. Convergence and accuracy assessment against finite‐volume calculations indicates that there is a significant range of validity of the perturbation approach. The influence of the wall geometry, inertia and non‐Newtonian effects are investigated systematically. In particular, the influence of the flow and fluid parameters is examined on the conditions for the onset of separation, vortex size and location. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
