| Abstract: | The problem of the steady flow of three classes of non-linear fluids of the differential type past a porous plate with uniform suction or injection is studied. The flow which is studied is the counterpart of the classical ‘asymptotic suction’ problem, within the context of the non-Newtonian fluid models. The non-linear differential equations resulting from the balance of momentum and mass, coupled with suitable boundary conditions, are solved numerically either by a finite difference method or by a collocation method with a B-spline function basis. The manner in which the various material parameters affect the structure of the boundary layer is delineated. The issue of paucity of boundary conditions for general non-linear fluids of the differential type, and a method for augmenting the boundary conditions for a certain class of flow problems, is illustrated. A comparison is made of the numerical solutions with the solutions from a regular perturbation approach, as well as a singular perturbation. |
