Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

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Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jnnfm

The stability of spiral Poiseuille ows of Newtonian and Bingham uids

in an annular gap
A. Madani a,, D.M. Martinez b, J.A. Olson a, I.A. Frigaard c
a

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, 2054-6250 Applied Science Lane, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia, 2360 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4
c
Departments of Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia, 1984 Mathematics Road, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 8 March 2012
Keywords:
Annular spiral Poiseuille ow
Bingham uid
Linear stability

a b s t r a c t
We consider the linear stability of both Newtonian and Bingham uids in spiral Poiseuille ow in the
annular gap between two co-rotating cylinders using the method of normal modes. Only axisymmetric
disturbances are considered. We nd that for the Newtonian case, linear instability does occur but the
margin of stability increases with increasing Reh. For the Bingham uid case, we nd the eigenvalue problem to be linearly stable over the range [Rez, Reh, g] 2 [0, 10000]  [0, 5000]  [0.75, 0.9], where Rez is
axial Reynolds number, Reh is the tangential Reynolds number and g is the ratio of inner to outer radius
of the annular gap and we believe that the ow is linearly stable for all B > 0 where B is Bingham number.
In the limit of B ? 0, we demonstrate that we cannot recover the results for the Newtonian uid. The stability behaviour is singular in this limit and we show that this arises from imposition of boundary conditions for the Bingham uid eigenvalue-problem at the unperturbed yield surface position, rather than
any other effect of the yield stress.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In this paper, we consider a pressure driven ow of a viscoplastic uid in the annular gap formed between two concentric cylinders rotating at the same angular velocity, see Fig. 1. This
conguration admits a uniformly rotating fully developed pressure-driven axial ow solution. Our study is motivated by a novel
particle sorting/fractionation application where the ow eld must
be in the axial laminar state for efcient operation Madani [1]. One
of the remaining scientic questions in designing the intended process is to better understand how the bounds for instability of the
base ow change due to addition of a centrifugal force to the pressure driven annular Poiseuille ow.
In this work we consider the linear stability of this ow using a
Bingham uid as the constitutive model. Linear instability of the
ow gives sufcient conditions under which we are no longer able
to achieve the base axial ow. It does not predict the type of secondary ow that results, e.g. this could be another laminar ow
or could be turbulent. Equally, a transition from the base axial ow
could occur sub-critically at Reynolds numbers below those predicted by linear theory. Nevertheless, we hope to gain useful insight from this study.
Bingham uids fall into the broad category of generalized Newtonian uids and provide the simplest rheological model of a
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ario.madani@gmail.com (A. Madani).
0377-0257/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnnfm.2012.02.007

shear-thinning uid with a yield stress. These uids are inelastic

but have an effective viscosity that varies with the rate of strain.
More clearly, if the deviatoric stress at any location in the uid
does not exceed a prescribed threshold (the yield stress) then the
rate of strain is zero at that point. Unyielded regions behave effectively as rigid bodies undergoing only linear and rigid rotational
motion. For steady, fully developed ows in annular gaps, solutions
do exist in the literature for the fully-developed case. Axisymmetric (one-dimensional) annular Poiseuille ows are described by Byron-Bird et al. [2] and by Fordham et al. [3]. Swirling annular
Poiseuille ows are studied by Bittleston and Hassager [4] and by
Liu and Zhu [5], all with the Bingham uid model. These studies
show that under slow ow conditions an unyielded plug exists
in the central portion of the annular gap, with its size dictated by
the ratio of the yield stress of the uid to the applied pressure drop.
For the case of swirling annular Poiseuille ows undergoing solidbody rotation, Bittleston and Hassager [4] demonstrate that the axial ow eld is not affected by the presence of the centrifugal force.
Initial insight into the stability problem can be gained by rst
considering the simpler problem of a pressure driven ow of a
Newtonian uid through a concentric annulus that is stationary,
i.e. there is no swirl component. In perhaps one of the rst studies
in this area, Mott and Joseph [6] demonstrated that for each radius
ratio g for sufciently high axial ow rate (represented by a
Reynolds number) there is a band of unstable wavenumbers. They
gave example marginal stability curves and computed critical
Reynolds numbers. They showed that as g decreases the critical

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

Fig. 1. Schematic of the geometry considered.

Reynolds numbers increase without bound, inferring the linear stability of HagenPoiseuille ow. Meseguer and Marques [7] indicate
that rigidly rotating annular ows (with no axial component) are
linearly stable. Since spiral Poiseuille ow for a Newtonian uid
is simply a superposition of two base ows, both of which are linearly stable, we might suppose that their combination is linearly
stable when the cylinders move at the same speed. This supposition proves to be false. When solid body rotation is combined with
HagenPoiseuille ow of a Newtonian uid, Mackrodt [8] demonstrates that the ow eld does indeed become linearly unstable.
Further examples of this destabilizing effect of coupling solid-body
with either Poiseuille and Couette ows are found in the work of
Meseguer and Marques [7,9].
Stability studies of Bingham uid ows are far less evolved
than for Newtonian uid analogues, and to date have mostly been
conned to single component base ows. A characteristic of the
base ows of Bingham uids is that they contain unyielded plug
regions. In the linear stability context these plug regions separate
the ow domain into distinct linear stability problems that must
be posed on each yielded domain, as shown for example by Frigaard et al. [10] in plane Poiseuille ow. Kabouya and Nouar [11]
study linear stability of annular Poiseuille ows and nd no
unstable modes. The suggestion is made that Poiseuille ows of
Bingham uids are linearly stable. The most convincing supporting argument comes from the fact that a Poiseuille ow of Bingham uid is mathematically equivalent to a carefully selected
PoiseuilleCouette ow, i.e. with a rigid wall replacing the plug.
For Newtonian uids, PoiseuilleCouette ows typically stabilize
for sufciently strong Couette components and the main mathematical difference with the Bingham problem is the inclusion of
some additional terms in the linear operator (which seem to be
stabilising); see Nouar et al. [12]. Thus, it is strongly believed that
the annular Poiseuille ow of a Bingham uid is linearly stable for
all g. Similarly, Landry et al. [13] show that solid body rotation of
a Bingham uid is linearly stable, studied in the context of a TaylorCouette ow.
To the best of our knowledge, there are no works available in
the literature studying the stability of spiral Poiseuille ows of
Bingham uids in the conguration of Fig. 1. Based on the analogous Newtonian results (where the superposition of two linearly
stable ows combine to allow linear instability) we speculate that
spiral Poiseuille ows of a Bingham uid may allow linear
instabilities.
An outline of the paper is as follows. We start by introducing the
dimensionless equations and the basic ow in Section 2. The linear
perturbation equations are presented in Section 3 where the eigenvalue problem is formulated and the computational method is explained and validated. In Section 4 we present the main results of

this study and demonstrate the stabilizing effect that the yield
stress of the uid has on the ow. We explore the somewhat paradoxical singularity in stability behaviour and close with a brief
summary.
2. Spiral Poiseuille ow of a Bingham uid
The constitutive model that we consider throughout this paper
is that of a Bingham uid. These uids are characterized by a den^y and a plastic viscosity l
^ p . The geometry of
^ , a yield stress s
sity q
the spiral Poiseuille ow is a channel formed by the annular gap
b 1 and R
b 2 , that rotate
between two concentric cylinders of radii R
^ . There is an imposed dimensional
with the same angular speed x
b ^z. Following Chossat
^ G
pressure gradient in the ^z-direction: p
and Iooss [14], we nondimensionalize the Navier-Stokes equations
^R
b2  R
b 1 , a velocity scale U
b 0 and time
using a length scale of d
^
scale t0 :

^2 b
b0 d G ;
U
^p
2l

^ ^2
^t 0 qd ;
l^ p

^G
^
b d=2.
b 0 =d
^pU
and a pressure-stress scale of l
Using these scalings
and omitting the hat notation for dimensionless variables, the
scaled constitutive equations for the uid are:


B

sij 1 _ c_ ij () s > B;
c
c_ 0 () s 6 B;

1
2

where c_ and s are the second invariants of the rate of strain and
deviatoric stress tensors, respectively. These are dened by

c_


12
1
c_ ij c_ ij ;
2

1
sij sij
2

12
3

where c_ ij ui;j uj;i . With these scalings we nd that the ow is

characterized by four dimensionless groups: the axial and tangential Reynolds numbers, Rez and Reh, the Bingham number B, and
the ratio of the radii of the two cylinders, g:

Rez

^
b2d
b1
^R
R
q^ Ub 0 d^
q^ x
s^y d^
; Reh
; B
; g
:
b
b2
l^ p
l^ p
^
R
lp U 0

The scaled radial coordinate and ow domain are now:

^r
^
d


r 2 R1 ; R2 


1
1g 1g

For convenience in dening the problem, it is sometimes useful to

use a fth (dependent) dimensionless number: x = Reh/(RezR2),
which corresponds to the ratio of the swirl and axial velocity scales.

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310



@W V @w0
@w0
w0t Rez u0

W
@r
r @h
@z

 
 
@p0
1 @ c_ zh
@ c_ zz
2 0


fr w g B
r @h c_
@z c_
@z

B=0

0.5
B=0.1

12

0.4

@u0 u0 1 @ v 0 @w0

0
@r
r r @h
@z

W (r)

B=0.2

0.3

B=0.3

In the limit when B = 0, the disturbance equations reduce to that of

the Newtonian case [11]. For B > 0, as discussed previously, a plug
exists in the central portion of the annulus and Eqs. (10)(13) are
satised only in the two yielded regions of the ow, adjacent to
each wall.
As is usual for temporal stability, we assume that the solution to
(10)(13) can be represented in terms of normal modes, and for
simplicity we consider only axisymmetric perturbations:

0.2
B=0.5

0.1
0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

13

r
Fig. 2. Representative examples of the axial velocity W(r) for various Bingham
numbers at g = 0.8.

u0 ; v 0 ; w0 ; p0 ; h ur; v r; wr; pr; h expiaz kt

14

where a is the axial wave number and k = kr + iki is the complex

wave speed. We substitute (14) into (10)(13), eliminate w0 using
(13) and eliminate p0 by using (10)(12). On denoting

The equations of motion reduce to

ut Rez u  ru rp $  s

$u0

D

d
dr

L D2

D 1
  a2
r r2

15

where u is the velocity, p the pressure and s the deviatoric stress

tensor. Imposing no-slip conditions at the walls and using the constitutive equation for a Bingham uid, a steady solution can be
found of the form:

the linearized equations reduce to

P; Ur; h; z Pr; z; 0; rx; Wr:

u
2Rez V a2
L2 u  iaRez WLu iaRez D2 Wu  iaRez DW  B/r 
v kLu
r
r
17

The shear stress has the general form

srz r

C
r

and the axial velocity W(r) may be determined using the methodology outlined by Liu and Zhu [5], which we have followed. Representative velocity proles are given in Fig. 2 for different B. The steady,
fully-developed spiral Poiseuille ow consists of an unyielded region in the centre of the channel, for nite B, bounded by two
yielded regions adjacent to each wall. The position of the yield surfaces is found as part of the solution methodology in Liu and Zhu [5]
and is dependent only on B at each g. The swirl component does not
affect the position of the plug. The size of the plug H is calculated by
applying the balance of shear forces and pressure forces on the
boundaries of the plug zone and is given by H = B; see Liu and
Zhu [5]. Non-zero axial ow solutions are restricted to B < 1.
3. Linear perturbation equations
We perform a classical temporal linear stability analysis, by perturbing the steady ow (P, U), described above, with an innitesimally small disturbance of the ow eld (p0 , u0 ) and plug size h0 :

u U u0 ;

p P p0 ;

h H h ;

where   1. Neglecting all terms of O(2), Eqs. (6) and (7) reduce to


V @u0
@u0 2V 0
u0t Rez
W
 v
r @h
r
@z





 
@p0
2 @ v 0 u0
1 @ rc_ rr
c_ hh 1 @ c_ rh
2 0
r u 2
 2 B


r @h r
r @r c_
@r
rc_ r @h c_

10


@V Vu
@v V @v

@r
r
@z r @h
  




1 @p0
v 0 2 @u0
@ c_ hz
1 @
c_ rh
2
r2
r2 v 0  2 2
B

r @h
r @h
@z c_
r @r
r
c_

v 0t Rez

u0



uV
Lv  iaRez W v B/h kv
Rez uDV
r

where



1 @ 2rDu
2u
 2
r @r
r c_
c_


a2 v 1 @ 2 c_ rh
/h 
r
2
r @r
c_
c_

/r

18
19

The boundary conditions at the annulus walls are

u Du v 0

20

and at the yield surfaces we have

u Du v 0:

21

While the conditions in Eq. (20) are fairly obvious, the conditions in
Eq. (21) are less obvious. The Dirichlet conditions come from consideration of the linear momentum of the plug region: over an axially periodic domain the plug region cannot be accelerated by a
periodic perturbation. The term Du = 0 comes from the linearization
of the condition c_ ij U u0 0, at the perturbed yield surface position, onto the unperturbed yield surface position. As commented
previously, the problem dened above is posed only over the two
yielded layers of the channel. Apart from coupling due to the base
ow, the linear stability problems in the two yielded regions completely decouple from each other to form two independent problems; see e.g. Kabouya and Nouar [11]. Although apparently the
same, note that the base ow in the inner and outer yielded layers
is algebraically different, so that the eigenvalue problems are not
equivalent.
Writing x = (u,v)T, these linear stability equations may be written as a generalized eigenvalue problem

Ax kBx
11

16

22

where

A AV Rez AI BAY ;

23

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

(a)

(b) 5000

present work
Mott & Joseph

0.9

4000

0.8
3000

Re

0.7
0.6

2000

0.5
1000
0.4

10

10

10

Rez

0
5500

6000

6500

7000

7500

8000

Rez

Fig. 3. (a) The margin of stability for Poiseuille ow of a Newtonian uid. For this simulation B = Reh = 0 and g as a parameter. In (b), we display the margins of stability for the
Newtonian case of the ow as a function of gap size.

Table 1
Critical values of Rez with increasing number N
of Chebyshev polynomials, (Newtonian annular Poiseuille ow: g = 0.9, Reh = B = 0).
N

Rez,cr

25
50
75
100
125

5.5801865e+03
5.9105687e+03
5.9106258e+03
5.9106254e+03
5.9106247e+03

respectively denoting the viscous, inertial and yield stress parts of

A. These operators are dened by

AV

AY

L2

/r

/h

;

;

1
ia D2 W  DW
 WL
2a2 Vr
r
A;
iaW
DV  Vr

AI @

B

0 1


;

We have solved the system of Eq. (22) using a Chebyshev polynomial discretization as described by Schmid and Henningson [15].
For xed (Rez, Reh, B, g, a) we solve for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of (22), and take the eigenvalue with maximal real part,
kR,max(a). At each (Rez, Reh, B, g), an inner iteration calculates the
wavenumber amax for which kR,max is largest. For the outer iteration,
we vary Rez until we nd the point at which kr,max(a) = 0. This root
nding procedure was performed using MATLABs built in function
fzero.
To validate our code, we compare our work to that of Mott and
Joseph [6], who studied the marginal stability boundary for an
annular Poiseuille ow of a Newtonian uid (B = Reh = 0) and reported critical Rez,cr as a function of g. The results are shown in
Fig. 3a. Our results match those given by Mott and Joseph [6]. Convergence of the numerical method is shown in Table 1, where the
critical axial Reynolds number Rez,cr is presented as a function of
the number of spectral modes (N) used for calculation, for a xed
g = 0.9. This critical value changes for each aspect ratio g and the
convergence is slightly worse for larger g. The value of N chosen
for the computations presented below was N = 125.
4. Results and discussion
Before we proceed to the main ndings of the paper, we examine the Newtonian case in order to understand the effects of superposition of solid body rotation on a Poiseuille ow. In Fig. 3b, we

have determined the marginal stability boundaries in the (Rez,

Reh)-plane for a number of representative g. Linear instability is
found to the right of each curve. We draw the readers attention
to two features of this gure. Firstly, the slope of the marginal stability curve is positive, for all parameters computed, indicating that
the centrifugal force has a stabilizing effect on the ow. In other
words, at higher rotational rates, a larger critical Rez is required
to initiate linear instability. Secondly, Rez increases with decreasing
radius ratio. This was also found in the results of Mott and Joseph
[6], for Reh = 0, where they examined the limit g ? 0, inferring the
linear stability of HagenPoiseuille ow. For B > 0 we have found
that kR,max is relatively insensitive to Reh. Fig. 4a shows the variation in computed kR,max with Reh at Rez = 10,000 and a = 1 for various B. The least stable mode has phase velocity close to the
maximum uid velocity. An example of the spectrum for
Reh = 5000 and for varying a is shown in Fig. 4b, which can be compared with that for no rotation in Fig. 5 below. Due to this insensitivity to Retheta, all the results we show below focus on non-rotating
case, where Reh = 0.
We start with Newtonian results. Fig. 5a shows the least stable
eigenvalue kR,max(a) for Rez 2 [2000, 10000]. For sufciently large
Rez we observe that there is an unstable interval of wavenumbers.
We explore this in Fig. 5b via variations in the eigenspectrum of Eq.
(22). Mack [16] classies the eigenvalues into three different families: A, P and S. The A-family represents low phase velocity and is
related to the modes concentrated near the xed walls. Family P
exhibits phase velocities close to the maximum velocity in the
channel. Family S represents the mean nodes and has phase velocity close to the mean velocity. In Fig. 5b we track the eigenmodes
as a is varied from 1 to 3, at Re = 10000. For large and small a the
least stable mode is from the P-family, but is always stable. For
intermediate a a wall mode becomes the least stable (the hump
the curves in Fig. 5a for each Rez). Over some range of a 2 [1, 3]
we observe that this wall mode rst becomes unstable and then
stabilizes again.
For a Bingham uid we have found that the ow is linearly stable over the same conditions tested for the Newtonian case. Specifically we nd the ow linearly stable over the region [Rez, Reh, g] 2
[0, 10000]  [0, 5000]  [0.75, 0.9]. As we observed stability insensitive to Reh we did not compute higher values. Fig. 6a and b shows
the variation in kR,max with a at g = 0.9 and Rez = 10,000, for various
B. Fig. 6a is the inner yielded layer closest to the inner cylinder, and
Fig. 6b is the outer yielded layer. Although there are small differences the qualitative behaviour is the same. The linear stability
of the ow appears to vary discontinuously with respect to B in

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

(a)

(b)

600
B=0.001

610

x 10

0.5
B=0.01

620

640

R,max

630
1.5

B=0.05
650

660
2.5

670
680

B=0.08
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

3
3.5

5000

2.5

1.5

0.5

Re

0
x 10

Fig. 4. Non-Newtonian uid results at xed annular gap of g = 0.9 and a = 1 for Rez = 10,000 . (a) Variation of kR,max(a) with Reh for a number of different B. (b) Variation of the
eigenspectrum with a 2 [1, 3], B = 0.01, and Reh = 5000; (the circle symbol indicates a = 1 and the square indicates a = 3).

(a)

(b)

200
Rez=10000

100

0.5

x 10

0.5
Re =6000

100

Re =2000

R,max()

200

1.5

300

400

2.5

500

3
6

0
x 10

Fig. 5. Newtonian uid results at xed annular gap of g = 0.9 and with Reh = 0. (a) Variation of kR,max(a) with a for a number of different Rez. (b) Variation of the eigenspectrum
with a 2 [1, 3] for Rez = 10,000; (the circle symbol indicates a = 1 and the square indicates a = 3).

the limit B ? 0. Even for very small B we do not any signs of the
wall mode becoming dominant, over the same range as for the
Newtonian uid ow. Fig. 6c shows a typical eigenspectrum for
B = 0.01 (for the inner yielded layer).
4.1. The singular limit B ? 0
While the main point of our results, from the perspective of our
intended application, is the establishment of linear stability for the
spiral Poiseuille ow for B > 0, investigation of the singular limit
B ? 0 is of independent scientic interest. This is also not simply
an esoteric investigation as for a xed uid in a device such as that
in Fig. 1, large Rez is inevitably achieved by increasing the axial
ow rate, hence reducing B. The range of B of interest is anyway
modest: B 2 (0, 1]. As noted by Frigaard and Nouar [17], the presence of a yield stress can effect the linear stability of a ow in
the following ways:
 Additional terms appear in the linear operator, i.e. the
term AY in (22). These are an (anisotropic) contribution
to the viscous stresses.
 The velocity prole of the base ow is different, which
affects the inertial terms in (22).
 The actual domain and boundary conditions differ for
B > 0 from B = 0.

The singular behaviour in B could result from any of these

effects.
First, we study the effect of omitting the term AY in Eq. (22).
This term produces singular behaviour in the effective viscosity
at the yield surface. We still apply the boundary conditions at
the positions of the unperturbed yield surface, as illustrated in
Fig. 7a, even though there is now no singular behaviour in the viscosity. We again solve the stability problem in two disjoint yielded
uid domains, and note that the Bingham uid velocity prole is
present in the inertial terms. Results are shown in Fig. 7b for various B, (all for g = 0.9, Reh = 0, Rez = 10,000). We see that
kR,max(a) < 0 and the ows are linearly stable. This indicates rst
of all that the yield stress dissipative terms (AY ) are not the cause
of the singular behaviour in B. Indeed, as they are multiplied by B
we would anyway expect their effect to diminish as B ? 0. An
interesting observation however, is that although linearly stable,
the curves of kR,max(a) appear to increase with B. This suggests
two things: (i) changes in the base velocity with B appear to affect
the inertial terms, making the ow less stable; (ii) the terms AY
must have a strongly stabilizing effect on the ow.
For a second study we consider the effect of the boundary conditions being imposed at the unperturbed yield surface. As above,
we delete the term AY in Eq. (22). Since this term is the source
of singular behaviour in the plug region we can now solve the
eigenvalue problem over the full width of the annulus, applying

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

(a)

(b)

200

200

200
B=0

200

B=0

600
800

R,max()

R,max()

400

B=0.001

1000

B=0.01

400
600
B=0.001

800

B=0.05

1200
1000
1400

B=0.08

B=0.08

1200

1600
1800
0

(c)

x 10

1400

0.5

1.5

2.5

3
6

0
x 10

Fig. 6. Representative Bingham uid results at xed annular gap of g = 0.9 and with Reh = 0, Rez = 10,000. (a) Variation of kR,max(a) with B in the inner yielded layer. (b)
Variation of kR,max(a) with B in the outer yielded layer. (c) Variation of the eigenspectrum with a 2 [1, 3] for B = 0.01 in the inner yielded layer; (the circle symbol indicates
a = 1 and the square indicates a = 3).

only no-slip conditions at the wall. The results are shown in Fig. 7c.
Interestingly, we now observe that for small B we nd linear instability, with the results varying continuously as B ? 0 to the Newtonian results. As with the Newtonian results, a wall mode
becomes dominant and eventually unstable, over an interval of
wavenumbers. At larger B the strong stabilizing effect of AY is
missing. The wall modes are apparently repressed and the least
stable modes are from the P-family. As in Fig. 7b, increasing B
seems eventually to decrease the stability of the ow.
This second study strongly suggests that the ow domain and
boundary conditions are responsible for the singular behaviour
as B ? 0. To conrm this we have conducted a third study in which
we take a Newtonian uid eigenproblem (B = 0 and the terms AY
are absent) but impose Bingham uid yield surface conditions
(21) at the position of maximum velocity; see Fig. 8a. Effectively
this is the same as introducing an innitesimally thin rigid sheet
at the position of maximum velocity of the base ow. Fig. 8b shows
a comparison of the Newtonian results with and without imposition of the boundary conditions at the position of maximum velocity. We observe very clearly that it is the imposition of the
boundary conditions (21) at the yield surface position that is
responsible for the stability of the Bingham ow.
Having understood the mathematical cause of the singular
behaviour, we should consider the physical perspective. First of
all, a similar problem has been studied by Mtivier et al. [18] in
the context of a plane Rayleigh Bnard Poiseuille at vanishing B.
Mtivier et al. liken the limit situation to that of a PoiseuilleCouette ow with rigid wall at the centre, implying the stability. They

suggest that the singular limit problem is physically justied in the

distinguished limit that the linear scale   B, and specically require  O(B3). The point of these additional specications is that
in deriving the linear stability equations we make assumptions on
the size of the stress perturbations, in order to retain an unyielded
plug and hence be able to linearize the yield surface conditions.
Although we accept that this distinguished limit may exist
mathematically, we note that the anomalous stability results in
this singular limit produce an apparent mathematical contradiction. Rigorous theoretical study of existence, uniqueness and other
properties of the solutions of transient interior ows of Bingham
uids can be found in e.g. Duvaut and Lions [19]. In particular,
these results show continuity of the velocity solutions of the Bingham problem to that of the Newtonian problem as B ? 0. Although
results specic to the ow here and in [18] do not exist, we would
expect a similar continuity. If the Newtonian ow is linearly unstable and the Bingham ow linearly stable, this will apparently lead
to a contradiction, i.e. at a nite time we may have a discrepancy
between Newtonian and Bingham solutions that does not vanish
as B ? 0.
Physically therefore, we feel that the singular limit would have
to be resolved via a more rened analysis, which is unlikely to be
classical. Linear instability predicts the propensity of a physical
system to amplify arbitrarily small disturbances. However, in practice these disturbances have some physical scale, say . For B ,
the assumptions made in a linear stability analysis on the integrity
of the unyielded plug under perturbation, become invalid. For
example, one could have many thin broken plugs islands distrib-

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

(a)

(b)

0
B=0.5

50
0.5

150

0.3

0.2

250

B=0.05

300
350

u = Du = 0

u = Du = 0

B=0.1

200

R,max

()

0.4

W (r)

B=0.3

100

B=0

400

0.1

450
0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

500

(c) 200
100

()

200

R,max

100

B=0.5
B=0.3
B=0.1
B=0.05

300
400
500

B=0

Fig. 7. Effects of eliminating the term AY in Eq. (22): (a) and (b) The boundary conditions are still applied at the unperturbed yield surfaces, as illustrated. Variation of kR,
a) with a for a number of different B. (c) As (b) except that we now apply no-slip boundary conditions at the annulus walls and use the full domain. All results are for
g = 0.9, Reh = 0, Rez = 10,000.

max(

(b)

(a)

u = Du = 0

200
100

0.5

()

R,max

0.3

W (r)

0.4
100
200

0.2
300
0.1

400

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

500

r
Fig. 8. Effects of imposing boundary conditions (21) at the position of maximal velocity on the Newtonian uid stability problem, as illustrated in gure (a). Figure (b) shows
the variation of kR,max(a) with a with (21) imposed at the velocity maximum (broken line), compared against the usual Newtonian computation with no slip conditions at the
annulus walls (solid line). Results are for g = 0.9, Reh = 0, Rez = 10,000.

uted in the centre of the annulus and evolving in time. This mushy
transition of the plug towards the Newtonian limit appears more
physically realistic to us than the distinguished limit.
5. Summary
In this work we have examined the linear stability of spiral
Poiseuille ow of both Newtonian and Bingham uids. Although
this work was motivated from an industrial application, the scientic goal was to examine the effect of the superposition of a line-

arly stable ow onto a Poiseuille ow. We nd that for the

Newtonian case, linear instability does occur but the margin of stability increases with increasing Reh. For the Bingham uid case, we
nd the eigenvalue problem to be linearly stable over the range
[Rez, Reh, g] 2 [0, 10000]  [0, 5000]  [0.75, 0.9], and we believe
that the ow is linearly stable for all B > 0. The least stable eigenvalues in the Bingham uid stability problem appear relatively
insensitive to changes in Reh.
In the limit of B ? 0, we demonstrate that we cannot recover
the results for the Newtonian uid. The stability behaviour is sin-

10

A. Madani et al. / Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics 193 (2013) 310

gular in this limit. We have analysed the root cause of the singular
behaviour and nd that it is due to imposition of boundary conditions at the unperturbed yield surface, rather than any other effect
of the yield stress. Although the linear operator in the eigenvalue
problem is continuous as B ? 0 the domain of the operator and
the boundary conditions are not. This is the mathematical cause,
as we have demonstrated by example. The physical limit of the
Bingham problem as B ? 0 corresponds to having a thin rigid wall
inserted at the point of maximum velocity. The limiting stability
problem is equivalent to an annular sliding CouettePoiseuille
ow, which is known to stabilize for a sufciently strong sliding
velocity; see e.g. [20].
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge nancial support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through the
Collaborative Research and Development program and through
the support of our partners BC Hydro, FPInnovation, Catalyst Papers, Howe Sound Pulp and Paper, West Fraser Quesnel River Pulp,
Canfor, Andritz, Arkema, Honeywell, WestCan Engineering, Advanced Fiber Technologies, Ontario Power Authority and CEATI
international.
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