Lie-group method solutions for a viscous flow in a dilating-squeezing permeable channel with velocity slip

Abstract

The investigation focuses on the effects of wall velocity slip on the solution of a viscous, laminar, incompressible channel flow subjected to small-scaled contraction and expansion of the weakly permeable walls. The study of such flow systems is often contextual for fluid transport in biological organisms. In the considered flow configuration, the vertically moving porous walls enable the fluid to enter or exit with a constant rate. The tangential slip velocity of the flow at the porous walls is modeled with the Navier slip boundary condition. The flow dynamics inside the channel is governed by the full Navier–Stokes equations. The Lie symmetry analysis and the invariant method are adopted to reduce the number of independent variables in the system of governing equations. Consequently, a single fourth-order ordinary differential equation is obtained, which is solved analytically by the double perturbation method and the variation of iteration method. The solutions are compared for different arrangements. Furthermore, the approximated analytical solutions are likened to the numerical solutions obtained from a fourth-order Runge–Kutta solver embedding the Shooting method to check the accuracy. It is observed that the boundary layers are formed, and the flow rapidly turns near the walls, when suction and wall contraction coexist. Alternatively, if injection and wall expansion are paired, the flow adjacent to the walls is delayed. The existence of wall velocity slip advances the near-wall velocity and cuts down the speed of centerline velocity. It results in a change in the volumetric flow rate and shear rate. The overall pressure is also varied by higher wall velocity slip. The results are explored for different values of the permeation Reynold number and the dimensionless wall dilation rate to capture all possible impacts of the flow parameters. The current analysis rectifies the existing errors in the work of Boutros et al. [“Lie-group method solution for two-dimensional viscous flow between slowly expanding or contracting walls with weak permeability,”Appl. Math. Model. 31(6), 1092–1108 (2007)] with the no-slip boundary condition and discusses the overall influences of slip boundary condition on the Lie symmetry solution of the flow system.