Abstract
The reduced problem of the Navier–Stokes and the continuity equations, in two-dimensional Cartesian coordinates with Eulerian description, for incompressible non-Newtonian fluids, is considered. The Ladyzhenskaya model, with a non-linear velocity dependent stress tensor is adopted, and leads to the governing equation of interest. The reduction is based on a self-similar transformation as demonstrated in existing literature, for two spatial variables and one time variable, resulting in an ODE defined on a semi-infinite domain. In our search for classical solutions, existence and uniqueness will be determined depending on the signs of two parameters with physical interpretation in the equation. Illustrations are included to highlight some of the main results.
Keywords
Citation
Wei, D. and Al-Ashhab, S. (2020), "Existence of self-similar solutions of the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation for non-Newtonian fluids", Arab Journal of Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 26 No. 1/2, pp. 167-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajmsc.2019.04.001
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Dongming Wei and Samer Al-Ashhab
License
Published in Arab Journal of Mathematical Sciences. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
1. Introduction
The study of non-Newtonian fluids, both mathematically and physically, has gained much importance during the last few decades due to their many applications in industry and in describing physical phenomena. The basic physical theory, and its mathematical formulation can be found in [1,8,18]. Many researchers studied non-Newtonian fluids from a numerical or computational point of view, in some instances accompanied with certain techniques or transformations to elucidate investigating the problem [6,9]. Other studies involved existence and uniqueness of solutions to problems involving non-Newtonian fluids [10,11,20,21]. Many times, it is found that solutions for Newtonian and non-Newtonian flows are not unique [7,13,15,17]. In some instances or special cases, exact solutions were established, see for example [12]. Our interest in this paper is in a Ladyzhenskaya type non-Newtonian fluid [16], where self-similar transformations of the Navier–Stokes equations, for non-Newtonian incompressible fluids, lead to an ODE with dependence on one similarity variable. Navier–Stokes equations in two dimensions, for incompressible non-Newtonian fluids, consist of a system of PDEs with two spatial variables, and a time variable. However, a two-dimensional generalization of the well-known self-similar Ansatz reduces the PDE system into an ODE. This resulting ODE was used for example in [4], to study the compressible Newtonian Navier–Stokes equations. Symmetry reductions analysis can also be applied to obtain some solutions, as was done in [14], and as was done for three dimensions in [19].
Recently in [3], the authors considered a self-similar transformation to obtain analytic solutions of the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations, with Eulerian description, for a non-Newtonian fluid. However, it remains to investigate existence and uniqueness of solutions for that particular reduced Navier–Stokes equation, with suitable boundary conditions. A similar problem was studied in [5], but where the parameters were tied together via certain relations, and where the authors used a different approach to investigate the problem.
We shall discuss existence (or non-existence) and uniqueness of solutions for the resulting Navier–Stokes reduced problem. In Section 2, we introduce the problem with a brief derivation including the main ideas leading to the governing equation of interest. The main results are then derived in Section 3, where we discuss separate cases depending on the sign of two parameters: the flow behavior index (mathematically an exponent
2. The problem
Consider the Ladyzhenskaya model of non-Newtonian fluid dynamics, with the following formulation (c.f. [16]):
simplifies the formulation, using compact notation, to the following equations:
The following transformation (8) (self-similar Ansatz, c.f. [3]) leads to solutions of physical interest, and shall further simplify the problem consisting of the 3 × 3 PDE system (5)–(7) given above. Namely, this transformation is given by:
Solutions of physical relevance and interest will require all exponents in (9) to be positive, from which we must have:
Observe that this ODE is for
We shall make a few observations regarding (11). First, notice that if
Additionally, observe that it is not possible to have
3. Existence of solutions
To establish existence of solutions, a shooting method is utilized where the condition at infinity is replaced by an initial condition
Observe that subtracting
To begin with, let us consider the case
Theorem 1.There exists a unique solution to (11) subject to (12) for
Proof. To begin with, we show that for some appropriate choice of the initial condition
On the other hand, it can be shown that for large enough
Now to show existence of solutions: given the above results, suppose that
In fact, a general assumption that there is a minimum value for a solution
We still need to prove that there exists a solution that will not reach
So now with
To verify that
To establish uniqueness, suppose that
Figure 1 shows a typical solution to the Navier–Stokes equation (11) illustrating the above result. Another result can readily be obtained here for
Proposition 2. There exists no solution to (11) subject to (12) for
Proof. Under the hypotheses of the preceding theorem where
In fact, solutions where
3.1 The case r < 0 , k < 0
As for the case where
Choose
This choice will show that a solution exists such that for some
On the other hand, there exists a solution which crosses the axis at some finite
Theorem 3. There exists no solution to (11) subject to (12) if
The dynamics here is the following: Solutions exist where
3.2 The case r < 0 , k < 0
Unlike some of the previous cases, observe that in this case the governing equation (11) implies that
Lemma 4. Two different solutions of (11) with the same initial f(0), but two different initial gradients
Proof. Given a solution with say
Now, using the continuity with respect to initial conditions, it can be concluded that the solution
With solutions that reach
Remark. Observe that the two different views above involve the same set of solutions.
Theorem 5. Solutions to (11) subject to (12) exist for
In fact, analysis of Eq. (13) suggests that other solutions may exist but where
4. Conclusions
We studied a reduced problem from the Navier–Stokes and the continuity equations in two-dimensional Cartesian coordinates, with Eulerian description, for incompressible non-Newtonian fluids. We have shown the existence of positive solutions to the reduced ODE,
Figures
Figure 1
A typical solution to the Navier–Stokes equation (11) with
Figure 2
A typical solution to Eq. (11) with
Figure 4
A typical solution to Eq. (11) with
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Acknowledgements
Dongming Wei is supported by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education Grant # AP05134166. The publisher wishes to inform readers that the article “Existence of self-similar solutions of the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation for non-Newtonian fluids” was originally published by the previous publisher of the Arab Journal of Mathematical Sciences and the pagination of this article has been subsequently changed. There has been no change to the content of the article. This change was necessary for the journal to transition from the previous publisher to the new one. The publisher sincerely apologises for any inconvenience caused. To access and cite this article, please use Wei, D., Al-Ashhab, S. (2019), “Existence of self-similar solutions of the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equation for non-Newtonian fluids”, Arab Journal of Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 26 No. 1/2, pp. 167-178. The original publication date for this paper was 20/04/2019.