A revisit of the development of viscoplastic flow in pipes and channels

Abstract

This study revisits the development of viscoplastic flow in pipes and channels, focusing on the flow of a Bingham plastic. Using finite element simulations and the Papanastasiou regularisation, results are obtained across a range of Reynolds and Bingham numbers. The novel contributions of this work include: (a) investigating a definition of the development length based on wall shear stress, a critical parameter in numerous applications; (b) considering alternative definitions of the Reynolds number in an effort to collapse the development length curves onto a single master curve, independent of the Bingham number; (c) examining the patterns of yielded and unyielded regions within the flow domain; and (d) assessing the impact of the regularisation parameter on the accuracy of the results. The findings enhance the existing literature, providing a more comprehensive understanding of this classic flow problem.