Dispersion of a Solute in a Poiseuille Flow of a Viscoelastic Fluid

Abstract

Gill and Sankarasubramanian's analysis of the dispersion of Newtonian fluids in laminar flow between two parallel walls is extended to the flow of non-Newtonian viscoelastic fluids (known as Phan-Thein-Tanner (PTT)). Using a generalized dispersion model which is valid for all times after the solute injection, the diffusion coefficient K<inf>i</inf>(t) is obtained exactly and numerically for linearized and exponential forms of the PTT fluids, respectively. The analysis leads to the novel result for K<inf>1</inf> and K<inf>2</inf>(t) (which is a measure of the longitudinal dispersion coefficient of the solute). It is found that the value of K<inf>2</inf>(t) depends on the value of Deborah number (De=a measure of the level of elasticity in the fluid) whereas the value of K<inf>1</inf> is constant in both cases. Finally, the effect of the Deborah number on the axial distribution of the mean concentration θ<inf>m</inf> is investigated in detail. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.