Flow and heat transfer characteristics of non-Newtonian fluid over an oscillating flat plate

Abstract

The primary purpose of the present study is to investigate the unsteady flow and heat transfer characteristics of non-Newtonian power-law fluid over an oscillating flat plate. The power-law fluid model is employed to characterize the non-Newtonian fluid behavior, which has wide applications in nature and technology, such as crude oil exploitation, polymer processing and some bio applications. In this study, the coupled governing equations are set up using the non-Newtonian fluid model. The radial basis function collocation method (RBFCM) and the finite element method (FEM) are used to solve the coupled equations. The simulation results on the fluid velocity and temperature distribution are analyzed in detail. For authentication of the proposed schemes, the numerical results are compared with earlier research works. To further verify the validity of the FEM and the RBFCM results, the flow behavior of crude oil was studied and the obtained results were found to be consistent with each other using both methods. Our results provide further guidance for evaluation aspects dealing with crude oil in a pipe, which are basic tools in oil and gas explorations.

Additional information

Funding

The work was partially funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China under Grants Nos. 2018B680X14, 2019B16014 and B210202092; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 11972148; the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, China (Grant No. KYCX18_0524); and the China Scholarship Council (CSC 201806710044).