On the stability of the simple shear flow of a Johnson-Segalman fluid

We solve the time-dependent simple shear flow of a Johnson-Segalman fluid with added Newtonian viscosity. We focus on the case where the steady-state shear stress/shear rate curve is not monotonic. We show that, in addition to the standard smooth linear solution for the velocity, there exists, in a certain range of the velocity of the moving plate, an uncountable infinity of steady-state solutions in which the velocity is piecewise linear, the shear stress is constant and the other stress components are characterized by jump discontinuities. The stability of the steady-state solutions is investigated numerically. In agreement with linear stability analysis, it is shown that steady-state solutions are unstable only if the slope of a linear velocity segment is in the negative-slope regime of the shear stress/shear rate curve. The time-dependent solutions are always bounded and converge to a stable steady state. The number of the discontinuity points and the final value of the shear stress depend on the initial perturbation. No regimes of self-sustained oscillations have been found. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.