On a boundary condition for pressure‐driven laminar flow of incompressible fluids

We prove in Theorem 1 a new relationship between the stress, pressure, velocity, and mean curvature for embedded surfaces in incompressible viscous flows. This is then used to define a corresponding modified pressure boundary condition for flow of Newtonian and generalized Newtonian fluids. These results agree with an intuitive notion of the flow physics but apparently have not previously been shown rigorously. We describe some of the implementation issues for inflow and outflow boundaries in this context and give details for a penalty treatment of the associated tangential velocity constraint. This is then implemented and applied in high‐resolution 3D benchmark calculations for a representative generalized viscosity model. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.