Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 49 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The usual elastic secondary flow around a rotating sphere is inward towards the equator, then poleward beside the sphere and outward near both poles. It is superposed on the primary azimuthal rotating sphere in Stokes flow. Tensile normal stresses along curved azimuthal streamlines act as hoop stresses, pulling liquid towards the rotation axis. Incompressibility supplies the axial return flow. Unlike the primary rotation, this meridional circulation does not reverse when the rotation is reversed.
The direction assumes the usual polymeric sign and negligible inertia. A general second-order fluid has circulation proportional to : a negative value reverses the arrows and eliminates the leading elastic circulation. Inertial secondary circulation is a different contribution, so slow rotation alone does not determine which contribution dominates. The sketch shows the elastic contribution for :
Elastic meridional circulation entering at the equator and leaving near the poles of a rotating sphere
. Details. For a quantitative check of the sketch, take sphere radius , angular velocity and . The primary azimuthal velocity is , with measured from the rotation axis. Its only nonzero strain components in the spherical orthonormal basis are . The leading elastic secondary circulation around a rotating sphere has the stream functionwith and . The bracket is outside the sphere. Thus at the equator and near the poles when , and both components vanish on the sphere. The diagram uses these velocities, not independently chosen arrows.
Two other manifestations of the same elastic normal-stress differences are rod climbing, in which inward hoop stresses raise a free surface around a rotating rod, and die swell, in which relaxation of the axial stress and stored polymer deformation allows an extrudate to expand sideways after leaving the die. These are not explained by a scalar shear viscosity alone. A Newtonian extrudate can also swell through velocity-profile rearrangement, so the elastic contribution should not be identified with every instance of swelling.
The second-order fluid is a slow, weak-flow expansion of the objective constitutive history of an isotropic simple fluid. Material frame indifference requires objective tensor rates. For an incompressible flow, the leading isotropic stress is arbitrary pressure, the linear deviatoric term is , and at the next order the independent contributions can be represented by and an objective rate of . Isotropic scalar contributions are absorbed into the pressure. Their coefficients can be expressed through the two low-rate normal-stress differences, givingHere is the lower-convected derivative, not a division by . This local expansion is appropriate when deformation and temporal change over the relevant viscoelastic relaxation time are small: both the Weissenberg number and the appropriate Deborah number must be small. It captures leading normal stresses in slow flows, but not arbitrary finite-strain history, rapid transients or strongly nonlinear shear thinning. In particular its restrictions are stronger than small-amplitude linear oscillatory response at arbitrary frequency.
For steady simple shear flow , use component-first , so the paper's is . The relevant tensors areSubstitution givesThus the first and second normal-stress differences are and , and the shear stress is .
For the velocity-preservation results, the definitions imply . Consequently the non-Newtonian stress can be writtenwhere is the Jaumann derivative. Let solve the steady incompressible Stokes flow problem with the prescribed boundary velocities. The supplied identity says that is curl-free. If , then for a scalar on the ordinary simply connected flow domain. The momentum equation at isHence the Newtonian velocity itself is a solution of the second-order constitutive model, with altered pressure . For nontrivial topology one also needs the curl-free force to admit a single-valued pressure; this is implicit in the usual boundary-value problem.
On the regular weakly non-Newtonian branch, Uniqueness of Stokes flow fixes the velocity correction. At first order it solves homogeneous Stokes flow, with zero boundary velocity, after the gradient force has been absorbed into pressure. Multiplying its equation by the correction and integrating gives , hence the correction vanishes. Higher perturbative corrections vanish in turn because the previous velocities remain . The velocity is in this second-order-fluid solution; only the pressure and stresses change. This is Newtonian velocity preservation in a second-order fluid. It does not assert global uniqueness of distant nonlinear solution branches or exact equality for a real fluid whose higher-order constitutive terms have been omitted.
For a planar incompressible velocity , the rate-of-strain tensor has the formAll quantities are independent of , so . The extra quadratic term is therefore also a pressure gradient. Together with the supplied identity for the Jaumann derivative, the entire non-Newtonian force is a gradient for arbitrary . The same boundary-value and weak-branch argument proves for every such planar second-order-fluid flow with prescribed boundary velocities, without requiring . Specifying stresses or a free surface instead of velocities would not give the same conclusion automatically, because the extra stresses affect those boundary conditions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 53 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
An isotropic simple fluid has local stress determined by the deformation history of the material element. A viscometric flow is one whose relative deformation history is that of steady simple shear flow, up to rigid changes of frame. At a given element the shear rate is constant along its history, although it can differ between elements. This includes the locally simple-shear kinematics used in standard viscometric measurements.
Use the component-first velocity gradient . The first two Rivlin-Ericksen tensors areIn the axes of a steady shear , the relative deformation gradient over a lag is , since . The material history is determined by , and its tensor symmetries exclude and stress components. The remaining symmetric stress consists of an isotropic part, one shear component, and two independent normal-stress differences. The relevant matrices areThus span the allowed stress components. Material isotropy and reversal of the shear show that their scalar coefficients depend on . Define the viscometric functions bySolving for the matrix coefficients givesThis is an exact steady-viscometric representation, rather than an assumption that the fluid is everywhere a second-order fluid. The shear viscosity measures the shear resistance, while and measure the first and second normal-stress differences generated by shear. Their zero-rate values are understood as limits when these exist. An isotropic pressure changes neither normal difference.
For a flow in the lubrication approximation with gap , longitudinal scale and speed , the shear-rate scale is . The viscous shear force per unit volume scales as . Quadratic viscoelastic normal stresses scale as ; their longitudinal gradients, and the comparable mixed-component corrections, contribute forces of scale . Therefore the normal-stress smallness in lubrication criterion isEquivalently, the thin-gap aspect ratio must multiply the shear-based elastic parameter to give a small quantity: . Normal stresses need not themselves be smaller than the shear stress; it is their effect on the leading force balance that matters. If the flow changes on an additional short time scale , the term also requires for its neglect. Material coefficients should be evaluated at the characteristic shear rate.
Now take positive cylinder rotation, measure counterclockwise from the rightward horizontal, and let increase outward through the film. The tangent has upward component , so the tangential gravitational acceleration is . To leading order in , neglect inertia and higher-order hydrostatic or capillary pressure gradients, and write . Tangential force balance and the shear-free free surface givehenceThe wall shear stress is . It opposes rotation on the uphill side and assists it on the downhill side.
For a power-law fluid, . Its inversion must retain the sign:Integrating with the no-slip boundary condition yieldsThe volume flux per unit axial length is . The integrated bracket is , so the power-law coating on a rotating cylinder hasAt the gravitational term vanishes by continuity. Steady mass conservation makes independent of .
On the uphill half, put and . The local flux is , withIt has a unique maximum atA positive coating must carry the same steady flux at every angle. The tightest local bound occurs at , not on the downhill side, where the flux increases monotonically with thickness. ConsequentlyFor the thinner positive root on the uphill side connects through to the unique downhill root, giving a periodic leading-order coating profile. At the limiting flux the two uphill roots meet at ; it is the maximum flux of this lubrication model, with a possible limiting corner resolved by neglected higher-order effects. For the check is . All these conclusions require the resulting film to remain thin enough for the lubrication approximation and for the neglected normal stresses and inertia to satisfy their scaling restrictions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 53 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A simple fluid reduces to a linear viscoelastic fluid when its deformation and rotation over the relevant memory interval are small enough to linearize the constitutive history about an isotropic relaxed state. Small amplitude is essential; small frequency is not. For example, arbitrarily high-frequency oscillation can still be linear if its strain amplitude is sufficiently small. The relaxation modulus is the shear-stress response to a unit small step of shear strain.
Choose the harmonic convention . If the imposed shear rate is , the corresponding shear stress is . Substitution into the constitutive convolution gives the complex viscosity:For a nondecaying elastic part this formula is understood through the limit from a positive Laplace damping parameter. The complex shear modulus is , so is the storage modulus, the loss modulus, and in this convention.
Creep is the progressive deformation produced by a held stress. For a small step of shear stress, define the creep compliance by from a relaxed state. Writing hats for Laplace transforms, the same constitutive law gives . Since , this yieldsHere is the Heaviside step function. Inversion determines the full creep response, including any instantaneous elastic strain jump. Equivalently, the causal relaxation/creep convolution includes that jump through for .
For the Maxwell fluid, . Thus the two material responses areThe creep response is an elastic jump followed by constant-rate viscous deformation. The zero-frequency shear viscosity is .
For the wall problem, take and denote the shear component of stress by . The incompressibility constraint is satisfied, and the advective part of the material derivative vanishes because no field depends on . With no imposed longitudinal pressure gradient, momentum conservation and the linear Maxwell law giveThe initial conditions are in ; the no-slip boundary condition is , with decay as . Transforming these equations givesChoose the analytic square-root branch in with , so that the spatially increasing solution is excluded. The Maxwell start-up shear layer consequently hasThe Bromwich inversion formula now givesThe vertical Bromwich contour is directed upward and lies to the right of all singularities, including the origin and the branch points at and . A cut joining these branch points is a possible continuation into the left half-plane; inversion only requires the stated right-half-plane branch.
The Newtonian limit holds fixed while , so . Then . With , the inverse Laplace transform gives the complementary error function profileThis is diffusive momentum penetration in a Newtonian fluid, with thickness of order .
The elastic limit instead holds fixed while . Write . On the chosen branch, , so the Laplace transform time-shift rule yieldsAn elastic shear front travels at speed : the material ahead is at rest, while that behind moves at the wall speed. Indeed the limiting displacement is , whose shear strain is . A nonzero pointwise velocity gradient at the front is interpreted distributionally, or by smoothing the ideal wall start.
The use of linear viscoelasticity is conditional, rather than automatically justified for arbitrary . The material derivative simplifying to a time derivative does not remove the nonlinear constitutive effects of finite shear strain. In this Maxwell problem the rapid elastic response supplies the natural strain scale , which must be small for linearization through start-up. Away from the front, the strain accumulated over an effective memory interval must likewise be small. In the late diffusive regime its characteristic size is , which decreases with time. Large absolute wall displacement alone is not a disqualification for a fluid with finite memory; it is relative deformation during that memory that matters. In the elastic limit, where memory does not decay, the explicit strain behind the front confirms the condition . Without such a small-strain restriction, the computed field is a formal linear response and need not describe an arbitrary simple fluid.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 53 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
With its material state fixed by a prescribed deformation history, the differential pom-pom model is a simple-fluid constitutive law. The stress depends on the local history of a material element through its molecular stretch and orientation, without gradients of that history between neighbouring elements. A differential representation does not prevent a material from being a simple fluid.
To see the history dependence explicitly, use the component-first velocity gradient , so the tensor evolution is . Let be the relative deformation gradient, satisfying and . Along a material trajectory, an integrating factor givesThus is a functional of the local deformation history and its prepared initial state. If the initial is a positive-definite matrix, it retains that property, so is well defined. Given this , the scalar stretch solves , where . Its variation of constants formula again depends only on that local history:The differential pom-pom model also satisfies material frame indifference. Under an observer rotation, and transform as objective tensors, while is a scalar. The extra skew part of the transformed velocity gradient has zero contraction with symmetric , so the stretch equation is unchanged. The tensor evolution uses an upper-convected derivative, and the final stress transforms objectively. Initial values cannot be independently forgotten when specifying a finite-past experiment: a fully specified prepared state, such as rest, is part of the history specification.
Viscometric flow 2026-10-14
A viscometric flow has the local relative deformation history of steady simple shear flow, up to rigid changes of frame. For an isotropic simple fluid, symmetry leaves one shear stress and two independent normal-stress differences. The corresponding viscometric functions depend on the magnitude of the shear rate, while pressure supplies the isotropic part.
