Hydromagnetic Stokes flow in a rotating fluid with suspended small particles

Abstract

An initial value investigation is made of the motion of an incompressible, viscous conducting fluid with embedded small spherical particles bounded by an infinite rigid non-conducting plate. Both the plate and the fluid are in a state of solid body rotation with constant angular velocity about an axis normal to the plate. The flow is generated in the fluid-particle system due to non-torsional oscillations of a given frequency superimposed on the plate in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. The operational method is used to derive exact solutions for the fluid and the particle velocities, and the wall shear stress. The small and the large time behaviour of the solutions is discussed in some detail. The ultimate steady-state solutions and the structure of the associated boundary layers are determined with physical implications. It is shown that rotation and magnetic field affect the motion of the fluid relatively earlier than that of the particles when the time is small. The motion for large times is set up through inertial oscillations of frequency equal to twice the angular velocity of rotation. The ultimate boundary layers are established through inertial oscillations. The shear stress at the plate is calculated for all values of the frequency parameter. The small and large-time behaviour of the shear stress is discussed. The exact solutions for the velocity of fluid and the wall shear stress are evaluated numerically for the case of an impulsively moved plate. It is found that the drag and the lateral stress on the plate fluctuate during the non-equilibrium process of relaxation if the rotation is large. The present analysis is very general in the sense that many known results in various configurations are found to follow as special cases.