On micropolar fluid flow

Abstract

Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Mauritius, 11-13 July, 2011.

New fundamental solutions for micropolar fluids have been obtained in explicit form by considering Stokes and Oseen flows due to a point force and a point couple. Fundamental solutions that do not exist in Newtonian flows have emerged in this paper owning to the existence of microrotational velocity field in micropolar fluids. The newly-found fundamental solutions, together with the representations that have been derived based on Oseen approximation, are believed to be useful in seeking for new solutions to microscale flow problems. These flow problems are not trivial, as dealing with rheologically complex fluids and the mechanics of fluids at microscale, where Newtonian fluid theories have been found to be invalid there.