Flow Behaviors of Polymer Solution in a Lid-Driven Cavity

Abstract

In this work, a numerical study of polymer flow behaviors in a lid-driven cavity, which is inspired by the coating process, at a broad range of Oldroyd numbers (0≤Od≤50), is carried out. The Reynolds number is height-based and kept at Re=0.001. The fluid investigated is of Carbopol gel possessing yield stress and shear-thinning properties. To express rheological characteristics, the Herschel–Bulkley model cooperated with Papanastasiou’s regularization scheme is utilized. Results show that the polymer flow characteristics, i.e., velocity, viscosity, and vortex distributions, are considerably influenced by viscoplastic behaviors. Additionally, there exist solid-like regions which can be of either moving rigid or static dead types in the flow patterns; they become greater and tend to merge together to construct larger ones when Od increases. Furthermore, various polymer flow aspects in different cavity configurations are discussed and analyzed; the cavity width/aspect ratio and skewed angle are found to have significant impacts on the vortex structures and the formation of solid-like regions. Moreover, results for the critical aspect ratio at which the static dead zone is broken into two parts and the characteristic height of this zone are also reported in detail.