Title: The flow along a wall moving reversely to a parallel non-Newtonian, power-law stream

Authors: Asterios Pantokratoras

Addresses: School of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece

Abstract: The flow induced by a flat plate, with finite length, moving reversely to a parallel ambient stream of a non-Newtonian, power-law fluid is considered in the present paper. This problem has been investigated partly in the past (Klemp and Acrivos, 1972, 1976) but only for a Newtonian fluid and using a modified boundary layer approximation. In the present work the investigation is based on the solution of the complete equations using the commercial code ANSYS FLUENT. It is found that for low Reynolds numbers and low power-law index (n < 0.5) the drag coefficient obeys the relationship c_D = A/Re. It was also found that the drag coefficient, in general, increases with the velocity ratio parameter λ but at λ around 2 the drag coefficient shows a local sharp decrease (drag crisis). An explanation for this crisis is given.

Keywords: non-Newtonian fluids; flat plates; drag crisis; reverse flow; fluid flow; parallel ambient stream; power law fluids; CFD; computational fluid dynamics; drag coefficient.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2014.062430

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2014 Vol.14 No.3, pp.189 - 204

Published online: 31 Jul 2014 *

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