A numerical study of steady and unsteady viscoelastic flow past bounded cylinders

We consider two-dimensional, inertia-free, flow of a constant-viscosity viscoelastic fluid obeying the FENE-CR equation past a cylinder placed symmetrically in a channel, with a blockage ratio of 0.5. Through numerical simulations we show that the flow becomes unsteady when the Deborah number (using the usual definition) is greater than De ≈ 1.3, for an extensibility parameter of the model of L² = 144. The transition from steady to unsteady flow is characterised by a small pulsating recirculation zone of size approximately equal to 0.15 cylinder radius attached to the downstream face of the cylinder. There is also a rise in drag coefficient, which shows a sinusoidal variation with time. The results suggest a possible triggering mechanism leading to the steady three-dimensional Gortler-type vortical structures, which have been observed in experiments of the flow of a viscoelastic fluid around cylinders. The results reveal that the reason for failure of the search for steady numerical solutions at relatively high Deborah numbers is that the two-dimensional flow separates and eventually becomes unsteady. For a lower extensibility parameter, L² = 100, a similar recirculation is formed given rise to a small standing eddy behind the cylinder which becomes unsteady and pulsates in time for Deborah numbers larger than De ≈ 4.0–4.5.     

A pseudo-time integral method for non-isothermal viscoelastic flows and its application to extrusion simulation

A pseudo-time integral scheme based on a finite streamline element method is developed to combine variable temperature with viscoelasticity. A specific KBKZ integral model for isothermal flow is transformed to its non-isothermal version by introducing a pseudo-time and applying the Morland-Lee hypothesis. The coupling between momentum and energy equations is through the time-temperature shifting factor by which the pseudo-time is defined. The observer time and the pseudo-time are simultaneously calculated when tracing the strain history for the stress calculation in a non-homogeneous temperature field. Using this scheme, a full non-isothermal numerical simulation of some IUPAC extrusion experiments is carried out. Results show that while the temperature distribution near the die exit plane is an important factor controlling extrudate swell, either self-heating inside the die tube or external cooling on the free surface dominantly determines the temperature distribution near the die exit when the wall temperature is kept constant, depending on whether the Péclet number is large or small. The hot layer effect predicted by the inelastic swell mechanism is confirmed and well illustrated by the computation. Calculations with reasonable thermal boundary conditions further convince us that the isothermal assumption in our earlier numerical simulation is a good approximation in this particular case.     

Time-temperature-stress equivalence and its application to nonlinear viscoelastic materials

Stress-dependence of the intrinsic time of viscoelastic materials is investigated. The influence of stress level on the intrinsic time is considered to be similar to that of temperature, pressure, solvent concentration, damage and physical aging. The time-temperature-stress equivalence principle is proposed, by employing which, the creep curves at different temperatures and stress levels can be shifted into a master curve at reference temperature and stress level. Thus the long-term creep behavior of viscoelastic materials at a lower temperature and stress can be predicted from the short-term one at a higher temperature and stress. As an example, the nonlinear creep behavior of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) at room temperature is studied using the time-temperature-stress equivalence principle presented. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 19632030, 50003005) and by the Education committee of Human Province (No. 99C122).     

A boundary integral method for computing forces on particles in unsteady Stokes and linear viscoelastic fluids

Accurately characterizing the forces acting on particles in fluids is of fundamental importance for understanding particle dynamics and binding kinetics. Conventional asymptotic solutions may lead to poor accuracy for neighboring particles. In this paper, we develop an accurate boundary integral method to calculate forces exerted on particles for a given velocity field. We focus our study on the fundamental two‐bead oscillating problem in an axisymmetric frame. The idea is to exploit a correspondence principle between the unsteady Stokes and linear viscoelasticity in the Fourier domain such that a unifying boundary integral formulation can be established for the resulting Brinkman equation. In addition to the dimension reduction vested in a boundary integral method, our formulation only requires the evaluation of single‐layer integrals, which can be carried out efficiently and accurately by a hybrid numerical integration scheme based on kernel decompositions. Comparison with known analytic solutions and existing asymptotic solutions confirms the uniform third‐order accuracy in space of our numerical scheme. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

准静态离散元方法和线性粘弹性问题的模拟

离散元方法是近年发展起来的一种新数值方法,但原则上只能用于动态问题。从静力平衡条件出发建立了离散元系统的准静态演化方程并证明了系数矩阵具有对称正定、稀疏、带状分布等特点,适用于“有效列”方法求解,该解法比高斯消去法节省更多的内存和机时。通过引入广义Maxwell体的元间作用模型建立起线性粘弹性材料准静态响应的离散元模拟方法。该方法独立于传统动态离散元方法,是传统动态离散元方法的拓展,可望在更多领域获得应用。     

Transition of unsteady flows of evaporation to steady state

We investigate the half-space problem of evaporation and condensation in the scope of discrete kinetic theory. Exact solutions are found to the boundary value problem and the initial boundary value problems of the flow in the half space for a discrete velocity model. The results are used to analyze the transition of the unsteady solutions towards steady states. To cite this article: A. d'Almeida, C. R. Mecanique 336 (2008).     

Improvement of a pressure gradient method and its application to an unsteady flow problem

The pressure gradient method using velocity components and components of a pressure gradient as dependent variables has been modified to solve incompressible Newtonian fluid flow problems numerically. Applying this modified method to unsteady-state development of flow in a circular cavity shows that, at least for the case of a low Reynolds number flow, relative errors produced by the proposed method are smaller for most time intervals than those produced by the primitive velocity-pressure variable method and by the standard pressure gradient method. Also it is found that the modified and standard pressure gradient methods can be applied to the unsteady circular cavity flow at a moderate Reynolds number of at least up to 200.     

An incompressible SPH method for simulation of unsteady viscoelastic free-surface flows

In this paper, an incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is presented to solve unsteady free-surface flows. Both Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids are considered. In the case of viscoelastic fluids, both the Maxwell and Oldroyd-B models are investigated. The proposed SPH method uses a Poisson pressure equation to satisfy the incompressibility constraints. The solution algorithm is an explicit predictor-corrector scheme and employs an adaptive smoothing length based on density variations. To alleviate the numerical difficulties encountered when fluid is highly stretched, an artificial stress term is incorporated into the momentum equation which reduces the risk of unrealistic fractures in the material. Two challenging test cases, the impacting drop and the jet buckling problems, are solved to demonstrate the capability of the proposed scheme in handling viscoelastic flows with complex free surfaces. The jet buckling test case was solved for a wide range of Weissenberg numbers. It was shown that in all cases the method is stable and fairly accurate and agrees well with the available data.     

Application of the Galerkin-Kantorovich-Dorodnitsyn method of integral relations to the solution of steady laminar boundary layers

Summary The Galerkin-Kantorovich-Dorodnitsyn N-parameter method of integral relations belongs in the same general category as those of Ritz and Galerkin. The method is employed to solve the steady, incompressible, two-dimensional flow of a laminar boundary layer. General Nth-order solutions are obtained for regions of accelerated flow and, with a modification to account for a possible separation point, for regions of retarded flow. The convergence and accuracy of the method are evaluated by comparing the solutions with a large number of similar and nonsimilar flow problems. The method permits a separation point to be approached as closely as desired without encountering numerical difficulties or requiring special continuation techniques.

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Übersicht Die N-Parameter-Methode der Integralbeziehungen von Galerkin, Kantorovich und Dorodnitsyn gehört zur gleichen Klasse wie die Verfahren von Ritz und Galerkin. Diese Methode wird benützt, um Lösungen für die stationäre, inkompressible, zwei-dimensionale Strömung einer laminaren Grenzschicht zu finden. Allgemeine Lösungen N. Ordnung werden für Gebiete mit beschleunigter Strömung erhalten und, mit gewissen Abänderungen zur Berücksichtigung eines möglichen Ablösepunktes, auch für Gebiete einer verzögerten Strömung. Die Konvergenz und die Genauigkeit der Methode werden durch Vergleich der Lösungen mit zahlreichen ähnlichen und nicht-ähnlichen Strömungsproblemen untersucht. Die Methode erlaubt eine beliebig weitgehende Annäherung an den Ablösepunkt, ohne daß numerische Schwierigkeiten auftreten oder besondere Grenzwertbetrachtungen erforderlich wären.

     

An analysis of steady/unsteady electroosmotic flows through charged cylindrical nano-channels

The steady/unsteady electroosmotic flow in an infinitely extended cylindrical channel with diameters ranging from 10 to 100 nm has been investigated. A mixture of (NaCl + H₂O) is considered for the numerical calculation of the mass, potential, velocity, and mixing efficiency. Results are obtained for the channel diameters are small, equal, or greater than the electric double layer (EDL) both for steady and unsteady cases. In the present discussion, a symmetrical distribution of mole fractions is considered at the wall interface. Hence, the velocity and potential are symmetrical in nature toward the centerline of the channel, and also identical in nature at maximum and minimum time levels (i.e., at π/2 and 3π/2 for a periodic function) in the transient case. In case of steady flows, the velocity and potential satisfy the chemical equilibrium condition at the centerline. It is observed that the electric double layer reaches a local equilibrium in the presence of electroosmosis when the channel length is long compared to the characteristic hydraulic diameter and the flow is essentially one-dimensional, which depends only on channel diameter. Comparisons of NP (Nernst Plank) model with PB (Poisson–Boltzmann) model are achieved out for different published results at larger channel diameters.     

An application of Discontinuous Galerkin space and velocity discretisations to the solution of a model kinetic equation

An approach based on a Discontinuous Galerkin discretisation is proposed for the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook model kinetic equation. This approach allows for a high-order polynomial approximation of molecular velocity distribution function both in spatial and velocity variables. It is applied to model one-dimensional normal shock wave and heat transfer problems. Convergence of solutions with respect to the number of spatial cells and velocity bins is studied, with the degree of polynomial approximation ranging from zero to four in the physical space variable and from zero to eight in the velocity variable. This approach is found to conserve mass, momentum and energy when high-degree polynomial approximations are used in the velocity space. For the shock wave problem, the solution is shown to exhibit accelerated convergence with respect to the velocity variable. Convergence with respect to the spatial variable is in agreement with the order of the polynomial approximation used. For the heat transfer problem, it was observed that convergence of solutions obtained by high-degree polynomial approximations is only second order with respect to the resolution in the spatial variable. This is attributed to the temperature jump at the wall in the solutions. The shock wave and heat transfer solutions are in excellent agreement with the solutions obtained by a conservative finite volume scheme.     

An empirical constitutive equation of integral type for viscoelastic liquids

A 5-constant constitutive equation is proposed. The analytical form for the relaxation modulus as a function of flow conditions was chosen based on experimental data for stress-relaxation in solid polymers. The resulting formulae for the material functions in simple and oscillatory shear flow fulfil the empirical Cox-Merz rule as well as other phenomenological relations formulated by Coleman and Markowitz. The theoretical results are compared with experimental data obtained by Han for various polymer melts. Good agreement between theory and experiment is found.     

Variational techniques applied to radiative-convective fins with steady and unsteady conditions

An analysis is made for the heat transport characteristics of a longitudinal fin dissipating heat by radiation and convection simultaneously. The thermal properties of the fin material are assumed to be constant and the radiative exchange between the fin and its base is neglected. Two physical situations are presented. In one of these, the steady thermal process of the fin, exposed to constant environmental conditions, is studied using the Ritz method. In the other, the Kantorovich method is employed to examine the unsteady thermal behavior of the fin when the environmental conditions depend upon time. Computed results for the fin effectiveness are presented both in tabulated and graphical form for a wide variety of influencing parameters. The validity of these calculations is demonstrated utilizing finite-difference procedures.     

An application of interacting shear flows theory: exact solution for unsteady oblique stagnation point flow

An analytical solution of the governing equations of the interacting shear flows for unsteady oblique stagnation point flow is obtained. It has the same form as that of the exact solution obtained from the complete NS equations and physical analysis and relevant discussions are then presented.The English text was polished by Yunming Chen.     

Obtaining the steady shear rheological properties and apparent wall slip velocity data of a water-in-oil emulsion from gap-dependent parallel plate viscometry data

A two-stage Tikhonov regularisation procedure has been used to obtain rheological properties for a high internal phase emulsion from gap-dependent steady-state parallel plate shear data. This method is beneficial in that it can convert the steady shear data into rheological property functions. The built-in regularisation parameters of the method are able to keep noise amplification under control. The two-stage method is able to obtain not only the shear stress–shear rate function but also the apparent slip velocity as a function of wall shear stress. The method is such that it obtains the rheological functions over the maximum range of shear rate covered by the data. The results obtained using the new method are compared to those obtained using the vane geometry with good agreement being observed.     

Instability of steady shearing flows in a non-linear viscoelastic fluid

This paper proves the non-existence of global smooth solutions to an equation for a viscoelastic fluid shearing flow. The non-existence of smooth solutions is interpreted physically as the formation of a vortex sheet and an instability in the fluid motion.Dedicated to Clifford Truesdell on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday