A numerical study on viscoelastic boundary layer on flat plate

Abstract

In this study, the effects of viscoelastic properties of non-Newtonian fluids on the flat plate boundary layer are investigated numerically. The numerical solution is obtained using a second-order parallelized finite volume method based on pressure implicit with splitting of operators’ algorithm. Here, the nonlinear Giesekus model is used as the constitutive equation for numerical simulations. The effects of elasticity number, mobility factor and nonlinear normal stress differences on thickness of boundary layer, displacement thickness, momentum thickness, wall shear stress and drag coefficient are studied in detail. Interestingly, a finite thickness is observed at the leading edge of the flat plate. It is also observed that the boundary layer thickness, surface shear stress and drag coefficient of viscoelastic fluids are less than Newtonian fluids.