Steady Ostwald flow between two differentially rotating co-axial discs

Abstract

The steady flow of a power-law (Ostwald) fluid between two differentially rotating, parallel, co-axial discs has been considered for both large and small Reynolds number. All edge effects of the discs are neglected, the discs rotate in the same sense and the distance between the two discs is much smaller than their radius. In the large Reynolds number case a similarity solution is sought. It is assumed that the flow consists of boundary layers on the discs, while the core rotates as a rigid body with speed intermediate of those of the discs. The boundary layer is thinner than in the equivalent Newtonian problem, and the decay of the boundary layers is found to be algebraic. This slow decay contrasts with the faster exponential decay in the Newtonian case. For the low Reynolds number problem, the ratio of the disc separation to radius was taken to be much smaller than the Reynolds number. This is, in effect, a lubrication-type problem. The velocity components are expressed as expansions in ascending powers of the Reynolds number. For both the large and small Reynolds number flow, the torque is calculated as a function of the disc speeds, for various values of the power-law index n.