Fully-Developed Circular-Pipe Flow of a Non-Newtonian Pseudoplastic Fluid

Abstract

A fully-developed flow of a non-Newtonian pseudoplastic fluid through a circular pipe has been studied using a four-parameter model, as an example, for the shear-rate dependent apparent viscosity. The model used in this investigation is a modification of the two-parameter Ostwald-de Waele power law [1], which correctly represents the lower and upper regions of Newtonian behavior characteristic of pseudoplastic polymer melts and solutions. Since there has only one set complete experimental data available for the shear-rate dependent viscosity, we use them to show that a perfect match can be achieved between the mod-ified power-law viscosity model and the experimental data. Such a perfect match is required for an accurate prediction of the flow behavior in internal flow problems.