Asymptotic structure of the stress field in flow past a cylinder at high Weissenberg number (Q1574242)

The work has been motivated by the fact that numerical simulations of viscoelastic flow past a cylinder at high Weissenberg numbers have not been quite successfully. Here the author takes a slightly different approach to the problem. The flow of an upper convected Maxwell fluid past a cylinder at high Weissenberg number is investigated under the questionable assumption that the velocity field is given and similar to the Newtonian case. More precisely, under this assumption the integration of constitutive equations is considered, and the asymptotic behavior of the resulting stress field is studied. It is found that large Weissenberg number \(W\) results in boundary layers along the edge of the cylinder as well as in stress concentration in the wake. In the boundary layer the stresses are of order \(W\), while in the wake they are of order \(W^3\). The corresponding widths are of order \(W^{-1}\) and \(W^{-2}\). Beyond the boundary layer and near the wake, there is a region where the stresss are much larger -- of order \(W^3\) near the cylinder and of order \(W^5\) near the wake. This is a well-written paper with interesting results and the potential for future work.