Assessment of pseudo-plastic and dilatant materials flow in channel driven cavity: application of metallurgical processes

Abstract

Non-Newtonian fluid rheology representing the properties of pseudoplastic and dilatant materials has received overwhelming attention due to extensive applications in industrial and technological sectors like in metallurgical processes, shock absorbing materials, smart structures, and devices with adaptive stiffness, damping, emulsions, suspensions and so forth. Thus, in current communication characteristics of power law fluid elucidating attributes of pseudoplastic and dilatant materials in channel driven cavity is addressed. Finite element method (FEM) is implemented to interpret rheological features of power law fluid by varying flow controlling parameters. Discretization of domain at coarse level is performed by using stable first and second order polynomial (P2−P1) shape functions. Square shaped cylinder is placed at (1, 1.5) above the cavity. Hydrodynamics forces like pressure difference drag and lift variations are measured at outer surface of cylinder. The impact of primitive parameters like power law index (n) and Reynold number on velocity, pressure and viscosity for shear thinning and thickening cases is adorned. It is deduced that pressure difference increased against the variation in power law index. In similar way the impact of drag and lift forces mounts by increasing power law index. Reynold number has delineating impact on drag and lift forces near the obstacle. It is also seen that pressure shows optimized non-linear behavior near the obstacle and becomes linear along the downstream as expected in channel flow. It is divulged that pressure drops more rapidly for increasing magnitude of Reynold number. Velocity of fluid increases when power law fluid flow is behaving as shear thinning fluid in comparison to shear thickening case.