Flow of a new class of non-Newtonian fluids in tubes of non-circular cross-sections

Fluids described by constitutive relations wherein the symmetric part of the velocity gradient is a function of the stress can be used to describe the flows of colloids and suspensions. In this paper, we consider the flow of a fluid obeying such a constitutive relation in a tube of elliptic and other non-circular cross-sections with the view towards determining the velocity field and the stresses that are generated at the boundary of the tube. As tubes are rarely perfectly circular, it is worthwhile to study the structure of the velocity field and the stresses in tubes of non-circular cross-section. After first proving that purely axial flows are possible, that is, there are no secondary flows as in the case of many viscoelastic fluids, we determine the velocity profile and the shear stresses at the boundaries. We find that the maximum shear stress is attained at the co-vertex of the ellipse. In general tubes of non-circular cross-section, the maximum shear stress occurs at the point on the boundary that is closest to the centroid of the cross-section. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Rivlin's legacy in continuum mechanics and applied mathematics’.