Constitutive relations for Rivlin-Ericksen fluids based on generalized rational approximation (Q1300696)

In an incompressible Rivlin-Ericksen liquid, stress contains the spherical part (pressure component) plus some polynomial function of tensors \({\mathbb{A}}_1, {\mathbb{A}}_2, \dots\;\). Here \({\mathbb{A}}_1\) is the (symmetric) velocity deformation tensor, and the following symmetric tensors are constructed recursively. Specifically, the second-order Rivlin-Ericksen fluid has the extra stress of the following form \(\mu{\mathbb{A}}_1+a_1{\mathbb{A}}_2+a_2{\mathbb{A}}_1^2\) (the former term is the Newtonian viscous stress). Many rheologists believe that \(a_1<0\) in polymeric fluids. The present paper shows that the requirement \(a_1<0\) causes instability of the rest state of the second-order fluid. The author argues that approximation of the extra stress via a simple rational function eliminates this instability.