Unsteady flow of a second-grade fluid past a backward-facing step (Q1371541)

The authors study numerically a flow of a second-grade viscoelastic fluid past a backward-facing step. The streamfunction-vorticity equations are discretized by a second-order finite difference method combined with the Gauss-Seidel method. The overshoot reattachment length, absent for Newtonian fluids, is observed during the development of flow at higher Reynolds and elastic numbers. Secondary recirculation zones in the steady-state flow are present at much lower Reynolds numbers, as compared with Newtonian fluids. The authors show that with the same elastic number the overshoot effect is more significant at large Reynolds numbers. There is no comparison with experimental data.