Dynamic viscosity Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
The dynamic viscosity is the coefficient relating shear stress to shear rate in a Newtonian fluid. For a simple shear flow ,
Here is the component of viscous traction on a plane with normal vector . The shear rate has units . Thus dynamic viscosity measures the stress required to sustain a given rate of deformation. It is the shear coefficient; the separate coefficient for volume change is volume viscosity. [ref]
For a worked Couette flow example, place a Newtonian fluid of constant dynamic viscosity between parallel plates separated by . Hold the lower plate fixed and move the upper plate at . Assume steady flow, no streamwise pressure gradient, and the no-slip boundary condition. Then
The fluid pulls backward on the moving plate with force magnitude , where is its wetted area. For this is . Measuring that force, the gap and the plate velocity determines : a direct way to measure dynamic viscosity. The linear profile and opposing wall tractions are the standard plane Couette flow solution. [ref]
Figure 1.
Couette flow: a constant velocity gradient produces a constant shear stress
. Blue arrows show the linear velocity profile between the plates. Orange arrows show viscous traction on the upper and lower faces of a fluid slice; reversing the surface normal reverses the traction. The slice has zero net viscous force although each face carries stress. Details.
The velocity gradient matters, rather than the velocity itself. Adding the same constant velocity to both plates and the fluid leaves , and hence shear stress, unchanged. In uniform flow, every layer translates together and . More generally, even a nonzero velocity gradient need not generate viscous stress: solid-body rotation has zero strain-rate tensor, as the viscous stress tensor example shows. Thin gaps amplify shear stress for a fixed plate-speed difference, making dynamic viscosity useful for predicting the force needed to move lubricated surfaces.
For a uniform polar order parameter in simple shear flow , the angular equation is . A fixed orientation for nonzero shear therefore requires . For , its angular stability condition is ; equality at requires nonlinear analysis. The ordered magnitude must separately satisfy the radial stationarity equation and be nonzero.
The orientation of a force-free, torque-free infinitely slender straight rod follows background rotation plus the transverse component of strain. The last term preserves . Finite aspect ratio changes the strain coefficient and permits periodic tumbling in a simple shear flow.
The incompressible linear flow has streamfunction . Its velocity matrix squares to . Thus strain-dominated flow has saddle trajectories, rotation-dominated flow has closed elliptical trajectories, and equal nonzero strain and rotation gives simple shear flow along parallel lines with a stationary line. Pure rotation is counterclockwise for positive .
The constitutive convolution is the response of a linear viscoelastic fluid close to its relaxed state. Deformations and rotations during the material's memory time must be small, so the stress is linear in the deformation history and evaluating that history at a fixed position is consistent with linearization about rest. For an isotropic incompressible flow, the deviatoric stress is proportional to the history of the rate-of-strain tensor; an arbitrary isotropic pressure is separate. Small amplitude permits arbitrary frequency: the approximation does not require in an oscillatory experiment. Large accumulated deformation, substantial advection of memory, and nonlinear normal-stress differences are outside this formula's scope.
If a small step of strain is imposed at time zero and then held, to linear order. The convolution consequently gives for . In simple shear flow, this reads for a shear-strain step . Thus is the remaining shear stress per unit imposed step of shear strain, which explains the name relaxation modulus and directly describes stress relaxation.
Use the convention . Substitution into the convolution defines the complex viscosity:
Write . Its real part multiplies the component in phase with the rate-of-strain tensor, causing dissipation; its imaginary part describes the out-of-phase, elastic response. More precisely the complex shear modulus is , so the storage modulus and loss modulus are
For shear-rate amplitude the mean dissipated power per unit volume is . For the exponential Maxwell fluid memory kernel, direct integration gives
The zero-shear viscosity is , and the high-frequency storage modulus tends to .
For the channel, let and interpret as the signed amplitude of , not the positive pressure drop. The Cauchy momentum equation and no-slip boundary conditions give
Define and , choosing either square-root branch consistently; the flux expression is even in . The symmetric solution is
Its integral across the channel gives the oscillatory channel flux of a linear Maxwell fluid:
This includes inertia while using the linear constitutive response. The pressure-gradient amplitude must be small enough that the resulting deformation stays in that response regime.
As , . Hence
In particular , the usual plane Poiseuille flow flux with viscosity . The fluid has enough time to relax and behaves as a Newtonian fluid at leading order.
For fixed positive , let . At large frequency the square root with positive real part satisfies
Its real part tends to a positive constant, so remains bounded although it oscillates. Thus and
The leading volume-integrated response is an inertial balance and is in quadrature with the driving force . It is not necessary for the local profile to be a nearly uniform plug: the Maxwell fluid is elastic at these frequencies, and shear waves with speed can cross the gap. The oscillatory part of largely cancels on integration. Small attenuation allows resonance-like enhancements at finite frequencies; the leading flux limit still holds for fixed nonzero relaxation and gap parameters. A Newtonian thin viscous-layer argument would not justify the Maxwell profile here.
Finally take the different ordering but . Now is small, so the small- expansion remains appropriate even at a large Deborah number. The result is
Here inertia is negligible throughout the narrow gap. Dividing the velocity by gives the displacement amplitude, whose parabolic profile is determined by an elastic shear balance with modulus . The velocity therefore grows like frequency for a fixed displacement response. This is not the fixed-gap high-frequency limit just obtained: with fixed, the condition eventually fails.
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 :
Figure 1.
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 function
with 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, giving
Here 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 are
Substitution gives
Thus 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 written
where 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 is
Hence 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 form
All 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.
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 are
In 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 are
Thus span the allowed stress components. Material isotropy and reversal of the shear show that their scalar coefficients depend on . Define the viscometric functions by
Solving for the matrix coefficients gives
This 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 is
Equivalently, 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 give
hence
The 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 yields
The volume flux per unit axial length is . The integrated bracket is , so the power-law coating on a rotating cylinder has
At the gravitational term vanishes by continuity. Steady mass conservation makes independent of .
On the uphill half, put and . The local flux is , with
It has a unique maximum at
A 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. Consequently
For 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.
Let two observers be related by , with Q a proper rotation matrix. A spatial second-rank tensor has material frame indifference if its values at corresponding events satisfy . This defines an objective second-rank tensor, and allows the observer's rotation to depend on time.
For Cauchy stress tensor, consider a material surface element with unit normal n and contact traction . A rigid observer change preserves its area and rotates both its normal and actual contact force: , . Thus for every n, proving . Fictitious body forces of an accelerated observer do not alter this transformation of physical contact traction.
To keep the vorticity convention explicit, write , and , the negative of the usual component-first spin tensor. Equivalently, with the derivative-index-first used in the paper, . Put , which is antisymmetric. The transformed velocity is , and direct differentiation gives
The additional observer spin cancels from the symmetric part, proving that the rate-of-strain tensor is objective.
Along the same material particle, differentiating gives
The two extra terms cancel those from . Moreover . Hence the complete objective time derivative satisfies
This proves covariance for every constant scalar ; changing the spin convention without changing the commutator sign would not. It is a Gordon--Schowalter derivative with the paper's slip-parameter convention.
For the Johnson-Segalman fluid, first use the standard uniaxial extensional flow , with . Here and E is diagonal. The steady conformation equation gives
with vanishing off-diagonal components on the stable steady branch. The tensile normal-stress difference is . Dividing by the extension rate gives the Johnson-Segalman extensional response:
The conformation tensor evolution in each principal direction is . Therefore a positive, attracting steady conformation requires both displayed denominators positive. For the first pole is at ; for it is at in the transverse components. At a pole the corresponding component grows linearly in time, and beyond it generically grows exponentially. The model has a finite-rate extensional catastrophe; the algebraic viscosity cannot be continued as a physical steady response past the first pole. At zero rate, , giving Trouton ratio three. For the polymer contribution to stress disappears and the response is simply Newtonian.
The question does not specify extension geometry. If a planar convention is intended instead, the same diagonal calculation gives , valid on the stable branch . The preceding boxed formula uses the standard uniaxial definition of extensional viscosity.
For simple shear flow , write , , , and . The xx, yy and xy components of the steady constitutive equation give
Substituting the first two relations into the third yields , with . Define the viscometric functions by , and , using x for flow, y for the shear gradient and z for vorticity. The Johnson-Segalman steady viscometric functions are therefore
The solvent creates no normal-stress differences in this flow. For nonzero , the fluid is shear thinning with positive first and negative second normal-stress differences.
To classify the stress curves, set and . The scaled shear stress is , and
The second term has minimum at . Thus the shear stress is monotone for and has a decreasing segment for . At equality it has a horizontal tangent but no decreasing interval. Below the threshold, its maximum and minimum occur at
with the smaller root giving the maximum. Negative-rate curves are obtained by odd reflection.
Figure 1.
Monotone, marginal and nonmonotone Johnson-Segalman shear-stress curves
. Details.
For small b, polymer stress dominates the low-rate response, while the solvent restores a positive high-rate slope. The Johnson-Segalman negative-slope shear threshold signals a constitutive instability of homogeneous shear: different local shear rates can carry the same shear stress, permitting shear banding. A stress plateau or a selected interface position cannot be inferred from the local curve alone; spatial regularization and boundary/history information matter. This limitation is illustrated in a primary diffusive Johnson-Segalman study. If , the scaling by b is inapplicable and the stress is just .
A generalized Newtonian fluid can approximate the shear response of a fluid with viscoelasticity when the flow varies slowly relative to its stress-memory time scales and elastic stresses are negligible, or in locally steady unidirectional flow where a fitted steady shear viscosity captures the relevant stress and elastic normal stresses do not significantly influence the motion. It is not a general replacement in rapidly changing flows or in flows controlled by elastic stresses. Two specific failures are stress relaxation after deformation stops, since this law has no memory, and nonzero normal-stress differences in steady simple shear flow, since the only nonzero nonpressure components are off diagonal. A rate-dependent viscosity alone cannot repair either limitation.
Take the usual physical power-law fluid range , , and . The steady unidirectional Couette-Poiseuille flow satisfies . The stated upper-wall stress thus gives
Put . Inverting this monotone stress law gives . Integration from the lower no-slip boundary condition gives the power-law Couette-Poiseuille flow profile
The upper no-slip boundary condition requires
The bracket is a strictly increasing function of with value zero at , so the equation determines a unique positive . The absolute values are essential: for sufficiently strong pressure driving, the shear can reverse inside the channel. For a Newtonian fluid, , , and the bracket reduces to , yielding
For zero pressure gradient the limit is pure Couette flow; the parameterization of wall stress by then becomes singular rather than indicating zero Couette stress.
For weak pressure forcing, let and . Write the center-plane shear stress as . Linearization of the power-law relation about the positive base shear gives
Integrating across the channel must still give . The Gy term has zero mean, so at first order. Hence the weak-pressure Couette-Poiseuille expansion is
It is a small positive parabolic displacement of the straight Couette profile, preserving both wall velocities. For fixed positive n the stated controls the expansion; when n is very small one needs the stronger incremental condition .
Figure 1.
Weak pressure driving adds a positive parabolic correction to opposing-wall Couette flow
. Details.
The volume flux per unit spanwise width is . The odd Couette part contributes zero and the parabola contributes times its coefficient, so
This correctly reduces to the exact Newtonian flux at .
The extension to a general smooth generalized Newtonian fluid uses its differential shear viscosity, rather than its secant viscosity. Let for positive shear rate, and assume
Linearizing the stress law repeats the preceding calculation with replaced by . Thus
The expansion requires small rate changes, , and a smooth constitutive law on the perturbed rates. At zero differential viscosity the regular first-order expansion fails. A negative differential viscosity is still locally invertible mathematically, so the formula is formally applicable, but belongs to a decreasing, mechanically unstable constitutive branch. The usual stable-flow interpretation requires positive differential viscosity. Thus “any” generalized-Newtonian law needs these local qualifications.
Write for the Kirchhoff stress tensor and for the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor. Since and for the velocity gradient,
Therefore the upper-convected rate as a stress push-forward is
For the simple shear flow, put and . The velocity gradient and rate-of-strain tensor are
Their upper-convected derivative gives
Denote the symmetric extra stress by , and the relaxation time by to distinguish it from . The Oldroyd-B model in the question becomes
For the steady constitutive response, , and . Hence
A constant imposed shear rate can still have startup transients; these values describe the steady response.
For circular Couette flow , the velocity gradient in the orthonormal polar basis is
For completeness, in fixed Cartesian coordinates let and . Then and . Along a particle, the polar basis rotates at angular speed . Its contribution to the material derivative cancels the rigid-rotation part of in the upper-convected derivative. The rotating-frame reduction of circular viscoelastic shear therefore leaves
The flow direction is now and the gradient direction is . With , the same simple-shear constitutive calculation gives
Angular force balance implies is constant. Integrating gives . With and ,
The radial force balance is . Thus the inertialess Oldroyd-B circular Couette pressure is
The constant is fixed by a pressure or normal-traction boundary condition.
Here . The streamlines are , straight lines parallel to . The entire line is stationary. On the side the motion is northeast, and on the side it is southwest. In orthonormal coordinates , , the velocities are , : this is simple shear flow. The right panel shows both moving families and the stationary line.
Figure 1.
Planar strain, counterclockwise rigid rotation and diagonal simple shear, with arrows showing the three streamline directions
. Details.
Let be the rate-of-strain tensor and the Newtonian fluid stress tensor. The viscous dissipation is . The Minimum-dissipation theorem for Stokes flow compares the Stokes flow with every sufficiently regular incompressible flow in the same domain having the same prescribed boundary velocity, with no body force or with a conservative body force absorbed into the fluid pressure. A trial field need not satisfy the Stokes flow equations. Write it as , with and on the boundary. Integration by parts, the symmetry of the Newtonian fluid stress tensor, and give
Consequently the Stokes flow minimizes dissipation:
Equality requires a rigid body motion of , which the prescribed boundary eliminates. Extending the flow inside the inserted particle as its rigid body velocity produces an admissible comparison field with zero internal rate-of-strain tensor; hence the extra dissipation due to a rigid inclusion is nonnegative.
Here and below on points into the particle, so the traction represents force exerted by the particle on the fluid. Apply the Lorentz reciprocal theorem for Stokes flow in the fluid region to and the restriction of . The equal outer boundary velocities yield
The boundary-work formula for viscous dissipation therefore gives . The last integral is zero: is symmetric and divergence-free throughout the particle's original volume, so its total force and torque there vanish, and on is a rigid body velocity. This also allows the sign of this zero-work term to be reversed, giving exactly
With the particle's centre as origin, define , and the particle stresslet tensor . Contracting the linear background velocity with the traction gives
The background rate-of-strain tensor is symmetric and trace-free; the trace of this unprojected particle stresslet tensor does not affect the contraction.
For the straight-rod resistance in a linear flow, write , , , and , . The slender-body force density becomes . The integrals of and are and , respectively, so
For a force-free, torque-free rod, and the perpendicular component of is . Axial spin is not determined by this leading, zero-thickness slender-body theory; it has no effect on . Put . The vector identity gives
The force-free straight-rod orientation equation combines the background rotation with the part of strain that turns the rod; removing preserves its unit length. A rigid body cannot undergo the axial extension or compression imposed by , so opposite axial forces resist that deformation. No leading slender-body force density is needed when , even though the rod may rotate. Its particle stresslet tensor and viscous dissipation are
In the simple shear flow, , and . Thus the rod excess dissipation in shear is
The maxima at correspond to strongest axial extension and compression. The zeros at correspond to zero axial strain: a rod aligned with the velocity or its gradient needs no leading force at that instant. For , with the continuous branch and . Reversing the shear flow reverses the traversal. Substitution gives
The tails make the total finite; the instantaneous zero at lies between two maxima.
Figure 1.
Rod excess dissipation versus orientation and time in simple shear
. Details.
For a dilute rod suspension, the added bulk stress is the number density times the orientation average of the particle stresslet tensor. In this ideal infinitely slender, non-interacting model, rods approach alignment with the shear flow and their excess viscous dissipation decays. A real finite-aspect-ratio rod continues to tumble; rotational diffusion and interactions also maintain a spread of orientations. One therefore expects increased effective viscosity, with alignment offering a mechanism for reduced excess viscosity at strong shear flow. This is a qualitative expectation, not a claim that a finite rod suspension has zero steady excess stress.
Let the flow direction be , the gradient direction , and the vorticity direction , with simple shear flow and signed shear rate . Use the gradient convention established in part (a):
At steady homogeneous shear the ordinary time derivative and advection vanish. Put , and . The corotational Maxwell fluid law then gives
The equation gives , and the unforced equations force those components to zero. Solving the three displayed equations gives the steady shear of a corotational Maxwell fluid:
The deviatoric stress is indeed traceless. Its isotropic pressure contribution is irrelevant to either shear viscosity or a normal-stress difference.
Consequently the steady shear viscosity is
For , when ; it decreases with and tends to zero at large rate. This proves shear thinning directly, without confusing a decreasing viscosity with a necessarily decreasing shear stress.
With the standard definitions and ,
At zero shear both vanish; at small shear they are quadratic, consistently with part (b). The signs and the fact agree qualitatively with many polymeric-fluid experiments. However the fixed ratio often overestimates the measured second difference and cannot capture variation of that ratio with material and shear rate. For example, measurements on polyethylene show a smaller, rate-dependent relative second normal-stress difference. Thus the qualitative normal-stress signs are reasonable, but the predicted relative magnitude is not generally quantitatively satisfactory; these signs are not a universal statement about every non-Newtonian fluid.
The polar molecular field is
For a spatially uniform polar order parameter, , so it is colinear with and its magnitude is . The scalar factor can be negative; colinearity does not necessarily mean parallel orientation.
For the simple shear flow, the paper's velocity gradient convention gives
Substitute these matrices into . Projection along and perpendicular to the polar order parameter yields
Assume , , and . The flow-alignment angle in planar shear must satisfy
For , use the cosine equation: modulo , and the displayed tangent is infinite. The radial equation gives
where the sign distinguishes the angular branches, and only positive right-hand sides are ordered solutions. Linearizing the angular equation gives . For , the stable angular branch therefore has
Its radial relaxation eigenvalue is . At the angular linearization is marginal and requires . If , the shear restriction disappears and any orientation is allowed for . The printed request for dependence only on omits : in general the magnitude necessarily depends on it.
Let
be the rate-of-strain tensor and let . The invariant magnitude convention that reproduces the ordinary scalar rate in simple shear flow is
The tensor contraction makes this definition independent of a rigid rotation of coordinates.
Let denote the constant rate in the simple shear flow
Then
When , the structure equation contains the Jaumann derivative. In a steady homogeneous flow it becomes
Solving its component equations gives
The term has no component because . Thus
and the shear viscosity is
It exhibits shear thinning whenever : it decreases from at zero shear rate to the solvent plateau at large shear rate. If the product vanishes, the viscosity is constant.
For the diagonal stresses,
The two normal-stress differences are therefore
A force-free, torque-free straight rod contributes a particle stresslet tensor . Its extra viscous dissipation is . In a simple shear flow, ; the dissipation is greatest along the extensional or compressional axes and vanishes at flow and gradient alignment.
For azimuthal velocity , the velocity gradient in the rotating polar basis is . The basis rotates along a particle at angular speed . Accounting for that rotation in the material derivative replaces by in the upper-convected derivative. Its remaining shear rate is , so the local viscoelastic normal-stress difference follows the same constitutive algebra as simple shear flow.
In steady simple shear flow, the tensor equation gives , and the equation in the title. A circular pipe with axial pressure gradient has . Thus , and no-slip boundary conditions give
Positive produces shear thinning; the sign of the pressure gradient determines the direction of the flow.
Simple shear 2026-10-14
Simple shear displaces one coordinate direction in proportion to a transverse coordinate while preserving volume. Its deformation gradient has a single off-diagonal component . Simple shear flow describes the corresponding velocity field rather than the finite deformation.