FLOW OF A NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID PAST A WEDGE

A pseudo-similarity solution has been obtained for the flow of an incompressible fluid of second grade past a wedge. The numerical method developed for this purpose enables computation of the flow characteristics for any value of the parameters K and a, where K is the dimensionless normal stress modulus of the fluid, and a is related to the wedge angle. Results computed for K(x)2a varying from 0 to 200 show a marked decrease or increase in wall shear, depending upon the wedge angle, as x-2a/K increases from 0 to about 1; thereafter the change in wall shear stress is small. The present results match exactly with those from an earlier perturbation analysis for K(x)2a less-than-or-equal-to 0.01 but differ significantly as K(x)2a increases.