Strojniški vestnik - Journal of Mechanical Engineering Volume(Year)No, StartPage-EndPage Paper received: 00.00.

200x
UDC xxx.yyy.z Paper accepted: 00.00.200x

Investigation of non-Newtonian fluid effects during transient

flows in a pipeline
Ali Majd1,* - Ahmad Ahmadi1- Alireza Keramat2
1
Civil Engineering Department, Shahrood University, Shahrood, Iran
2
Engineering Department, Jundi Shapur University of Technology, Dezful, Iran

A sudden change in the flow rate brings about significant pressure oscillations in the piping
system known as water hammer (fluid hammer). Unsteady flow of a non-Newtonian fluid due to the
instantaneous valve closure is studied. Power law and Cross models are used to simulate non-Newtonian
effects. Firstly, the appropriate governing equations are derived and then, they are solved by a numerical
approach. A fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme is used for the time integration and the central difference
scheme is employed for the spatial derivatives discretization. To verify the proposed mathematical model
and numerical solution, a comparison with corresponding experimental results from literature are made.
The results reveal a remarkable deviation in pressure history and velocity profile with respect to the
waterhammer in Newtonian fluids. The significance of the non Newtonian fluid behavior is manifested in
terms of drag reduction and line packing effect observed in the pressure history results. A detailed
discussion regarding the fluid viscosity and its shear-stress diagrams are also included.
©20xx Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Transient pipe flow, Generalized Newtonian fluid, shear thinning fluids

0 INTRODUCTION and Whitelaw [4], Toms [5] and Bird [2] in

Transient flows associated with the water
hammer phenomenon are commonly encountered
in both natural and engineering systems, such
hydraulic system, oil transportation system and
human arterial network. Sudden changes in
pressurized pipe flow conditions caused by valve
closure, pump operation, etc. are routine events.
The excitations arising from these transient events
can cause to significant pressures leading to
devastating forces [1].
The flow of non-Newtonian fluids and
slurries in pipes occurs in a wide range of
practical applications in the process industries and
many natural systems. If the fluid has a
significant yield stress, or if its effective viscosity
is high, industrially relevant flow rates may occur
in the laminar flow regime.
The fluids under consideration in this
study are shear-thinning non-Newtonian, whose
rheology is described by a generalized Newtonian
fluid (GNF) model, i.e. the dependency of
isotropic viscosity on flow properties [2, 3]. In the
particular fluids of the present work the viscosity
can be described using either the power law or
Cross models. The capability of these models is
investigated by several researchers such as Pinho
experimental and numerical studies.
To conduct computations on non-
Newtonian fluids, the strain rate has to be
evaluated. It requires a two dimensional analysis
to provide the velocity profile of flow cross
section. The two dimensional analysis and
computations of unsteady pressure and velocity
profiles during water hammer has been developed
by several researchers [6-10]. Pezzinga proposed
a quasi-two-dimensional model for unsteady
turbulent flow of a pipe network and obtained
better results than 1D models [11, 12]. Vardy and
Brown [13] have had significant contributions on
non-Newtonian unsteady pipe flows especially
for modelling fluids with time-dependent
viscosities. More recently, Wahba [14] compared
shear-thinning and shear-ticking fluids in
response to a water hammer event using the
power law model.
Herein, unsteady pipe flow of a non-
Newtonian fluid is studied. This work may be
seen as a new extension to the classical
waterhammer model where transients of a
Newtonian fluid contained in a straight elastic
pipe supported at the valve and along the pipeline
with sufficient longitudinal anchors to suppress
fluid-structure interaction effects, is investigated.
Having done this fluid hammer simulation for the

*Corr. Author's Address: Name of institution, Address, City, Country, xxx.yyy@xxxxxx.yyy

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 Strojniški vestnik - Journal of Mechanical Engineering Volume(Year)No, StartPage-EndPage

power law and Cross models, several alternate    v   

  vr   vz 
works (in terms of studying the other effects [15])  t r r  z  .
 1  rvr  1 v v z 
on transients of these fluids can be offered for
future research. They include viscosity of the pipe    0
 r r r  z  (1)
wall, fluid-structure interaction, column
separation, each of which or any of their where vr , v , v z are radial, angular and
combinations e.g. Ahmadi and Keramat [16]; axial velocity components,  is density and t is
[15], Soares, Covas et al. [17], Hadj-Taïeb and time. The momentum equation in cylindrical
Hadj-Taïeb [18] in conjunction with the present coordinate in axial direction is
non-Newtonian behavior can reveal new aspects
 v z v v v v 
of transient flow in possible systems of   vr z   z  v z z 
corresponding significance.  t r r   z  .
Pezzinga1 et al. analyzed transients in  1   z  zz  zr
g z  rz   
pressurized polymeric pipes by a two- r r  z r (2)
dimensional (2D) Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic where  ij ( i, j  r, , z ) are stress
model [19]. Differences between transients in
viscoelastic and elastic pipes are pointed out by components in liquid in the corresponding surface
considering a 2D model. They showed that and directions. To derive unsteady flow equations
viscoelastic models precisely represent a faster for a non-Newtonian fluid some assumptions and
decay of pressure oscillations and velocity simplifications to be stated in the following are
profiles because of a time-lag between pressure made. The flow is quasi two dimensional. The
oscillations and retarded circumferential strain. term quasi indicates that v , vr  0 meaning that vz
Brunone [20] and Kim [21] considered pressure is the only velocity component which varies
and energy dissipation and unsteady friction in along radial and axial directions. The convective
laminar transient flows. They compare their terms are neglected [25, 26]. The non-Newtonian
numerical result with those of experiments. fluid behaviour is based on power law and Cross
Meniconi et al. also studied rapidly decelerating models. The equation of state: c 2  gH [25]
turbulent pipe flow. They proposed a new is valid, where H and c are pressure head and
approach to estimate energy dissipation and wave speed, respectively.
pressure decay [22, 23]. With the application of the aforementioned
In the present study, laminar transient non- assumptions as well as some algebraic
Newtonian pipe flow is simulated using the simplifications, the continuity Eq. (1) is reduced
power and Cross models. To this aim, the quasi to
two-dimensional (2D) equations of water hammer
for non-Newtonian fluids are derived and then g  H H  vz 1 rvr 
  vz    0.
they are solved by appropriate numerical solution c 2  t z  z r r (3)
based on the finite difference method. Integration over flow cross section and
Computational results are provided in terms of neglecting convective terms leads Eq. (3) to:
velocity, shear stress and viscosity distribution at
the flow cross section in the middle of the H c 2 V
  0.
pipeline. The results reveal that the non- t g z (4)
Newtonian fluid effects significantly contribute to in which V is the average velocity over
cross sectional flow characteristics. the flow cross section. Likewise, Eq. (2) with
considering the aforementioned assumptions
1 MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
yields
1.1 Governing equations vz v v H 1 r .
 vz z  vr z   g 
The continuity equation for transient pipe t z r z r r (5)
flow in cylindrical coordinate system is as The convective terms in the above
follows [24] equation may be neglected so that it reduces to:
vz H 1 r .
g 
t z r r (6)

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The shear stress term on the right hand several quantities for n are selected. This allows
side of Eq. (6) represents the fluid dynamic forces for the investigation of n in the power law model
and is be calculated by constitutive rheological during transient flows.
fluid property. The other model is Cross model, which
So far, no particular assumption is made has the following description
for the type of fluid in governing equations   1 .

consequently, the above equations are valid for all  0    1  k  yx n (9)
fluids types.
1.2 Non Newtonian fluid equations where n and k are two fitting parameters
Non Newtonian fluids may be classified whereas  0 and   are the limiting values of the
into three general classes: time independent, time apparent viscosity at low and high shear rates,
dependent and viscoelastic fluids[3]. Among respectively. In addition, for using shear rate and
them, the first branch is investigated in transient its independency from coordinate system,
flows of the present study. equation (10) is applied[2].
Time independent fluids, which are placed
   4II D . (10)
in the inelastic fluids category, are known as
generalized Newtonian fluids (GNF) too. This 1  ui u j .

Dij  
category is similar to Newtonian fluids, but shear 2  x j xi 
 (11)
stress and rate of deformation tensor is not a
linear relation anymore. In fact, shear stresses are where Dij is rate of deformation tensor and
a nonlinear function of rate of deformation. This IID is second invariant of Dij. This representation
nonlinear function is originated from natural of the shear rate in the r, , z coordinate system
features. On this basis, this category is divided with assuming the one-direction flow pattern
into that with yield stress and without yield stress. reduces to [2, 24]:
In the no yield stress group, there are two types:
pseudo plastics and dilatant fluids. The simulation    4II D   4 
1
2
 
trD2  trD 2  v z .
r (12)
of the former is the focus of this article.
The viscous fluid flow is defined in terms 1.3 Initial condition
of the velocity gradient which includes the rate of The fluid filled pipe is assumed to convey
deformation and spin tensor. The constitutive steady state flow before the transient event starts.
relation between the shear stress  in Eq. (6) and So, the initial condition corresponds to the steady
the shear rate of fluid is state flow. The momentum and continuity
equations of steady state flow can be written as
   yx . (7) P  2 0 .

where  and  xy are apparent viscosity z R (13)
and shear rate respectively. Power law, Carreau, v z
0.
Cross, Ellis and etc. are different models which z (14)
exist in the literature for mathematical modelling 1.4 Boundary condition
of pseudo plastics, each of which has strengths Transient flow in a reservoir-pipe-valve
and weaknesses [3]. In this study the power law system is simulated. The quasi 2D analysis
and the Cross model are applied. consists of three sets of boundaries including
The power law is the simplest with the reservoir, valve and internal pipe walls in contact
least possible parameters. It is described by the with flow. At the valve boundary the velocity
following equation distribution is set to zero after the valve closure.
  m yx n1 . (8) A constant pressure head is associated with the
reservoir boundary condition. The flow
where m and n are two empirical curve boundaries in contact with the pipe wall have zero
fitting parameters and are known as the fluid velocity. These boundary equations can be
consistency coefficient and the flow behaviour written as follows
index respectively. In this equation, if n equals
v z ( r R )  0
one and m is set to  0 , the Newtonian fluid is
achieved. In this study, m is fixed to  0 while v z ( valve)  0 (15)

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H rezervoir  const. .   Wi1  2Wi  Wi1 . (21)

2 NUMERICAL METHOD TVD  Wi1  Wi  Wi  Wi 1 . (22)

If ω is equal to zero, the above equation
The proposed unsteady flow equations in will be reduced to
the previous section are solved using the finite Wi  Wi 1
r
difference method. A fourth order Runge–Kutta Wi 1  Wi .
(23)
scheme is used to integrate the system of 1 r
equations in time. Spatial derivatives are i 
. 11 (24)
discretized using second order central For calculating the average velocity of
differencing scheme. Second order dissipative flow, the following equation is used, which is
terms are added to eliminate numerical numerically computed by the Simpson integration
oscillations. These terms perform just in high scheme.
gradient region and they are effectively switched

R
off in smooth regions [7]. 2rv z dr .
V  0

To start with the numerical R 2 (25)

implementation, the two equations (4) and (6) are
combined to one matrix-form equation with the
unknown vector W  H V * 
W W
B  C.
t x
where B and C are matrices of equation
coefficients. The elements of vector W is
sequentially evaluated from the descrtized form
of equations (4) and (6) based on the Runge-Kutta
scheme. The axial velocity profile is firstly
evaluated from Eq. (6) so V*=Vz. Then its average
is applied in the continuity Eq. (4) to calculate
pressure head H, thus herein V *  V . The
dissipative terms represented by A(W) are added
to Eq. (16) to suppress the artificial numerical
fluctuations:
W W
B  C  A(W) .
t x
The employed dissipative scheme is based
on Jamson method [27] which is directly added to
the basic equations. It is evaluate as follow
A( W)  ε i 1/ 2 Wi 1  Wi   ε i 1/ 2 Wi  Wi 1  .
1 values in various times after valve closure in two
Δt
max i  2 ,  i 1 ,  i ,  i 1  .
1
 i 1 / 2 
2 (19)
in which  is a numerical variable which
behaves like a switch, to be on or off on high and
low gradients of the unknowns, respectively. In
this article, Total Variation Diminishing (TVD)
scheme is adapted to distinguish high values of
gradients according to
Wi 1  2Wi  Wi 1 .
i 
1   TVD  
3 MODEL VERIFICATION
In order to validate the mathematical
model and corresponding numerical solution and
(16)
its implementation, the computations are
compared with experimental results. To this end,
an experiment done by Holmboe and Rouleau
[28] on a reservoir–pipe–valve system with the
following characteristics is considered. The pipe
made of copper has an inner diameter of 0.025 m
and a length of 36.09 m. Pressure signals directly
upstream of the valve and at the pipe midpoint are
recorded. The operating fluid in the laminar flow
condition (Reynolds number=82) is high-
viscosity oil (µ=0.03484 N.s/m2) and the wave
speed is measured to be 1324 m/s.
The test is initiated by suddenly valve
(17)
closing which causes excision of fluid flow in the
valve place, and creates oscillations in pressure
and velocity propagating along the pipe.
Experiment results illustrate pressure
(18) points along the pipe (valve and midpoint). In
Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, non-dimensional experimental
results taken from experiment [28] are compared
with those of numerical results for the fluid
pressure in the valve (Fig. 1) and midpoint (Fig.
2).
According to these comparisons, there is
good agreement between the numerical and
experimental results, thus validating the proposed
mathematical model and numerical
implementation.
(20)

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similar pattern to those of the conventional one-

Fig. 1. Pressure time-history at the valve
dimensional solutions.
Another comparison is made for the non-
dimensional axial velocity profile at the midpoint
at several time sections being factors of the pipe
length over the pressure wave speed (L/c). The
velocity profiles and their gradients can be
compared with the corresponding computations
provided by [7] (Fig. 4). Again the consistency
between the two set of results verifies the
implemented computer code.
1
Midpoint
Reservoir

0.5

0
u/U
0

-0.5

-1
Fig. 2. Pressure time-history at midpoint of pipe 0 5 10 15
ct/L

The average velocity of fluid flow Fig. 3. Computational average velocity history at
(computed using Eq. (25)) at the reservoir and midpoint and reservoir
midpoint cross sections are provided in Fig. 3 and
as one can see, the computational results have a
0.5
t = 0
t = L/c
0.4
t = 2L/c
t = 3L/c
0.3 t = 4L/c
r/D

0.2

0.1

0
-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
U/V0

Fig. 4. Velocity profiles at the pipe midpoint for the laminar water hammer (left
present study, right Wahba [7]).
o
As another evidence for the correctness of C. The modelling results of this study using the
the numerical model and its implementation, the current simulation are compared with those of
results of Brunone et al. [20] were used. It Brunone et al. [20] in Fig. 5. The figure to the
explains an experiment consists of a reservoir- right (taken from Brunone et al. [20]),
copper pipe-valve system with 141.07 meter corresponds to the pressure heads obtained using
length and 0.020 inner diameter. The other a 1D model with unsteady friction [29-31] while
specifications of the system are: Reynolds the one to the left is computed using the current
number = 815, pressure wave speed = 1120 m/s, 2D model.
valve closure = 0.11 s, and water temperature 17

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16

14
h (m)

12

10

0 2 4 6 8 10 12
t (s)

Fig. 5. Pressure time history at the pipe midpoint for the laminar water hammer, the
calculations of the present study (left), Brunone et al. [20] (right)).

0.035
4 INVESTIGATION OF NON-NEWTONIAN Newtonian
FLUID EFFECTS 0.03  = 50% 0

0.025  = 20% 0
To recognise the significance of the non-


Newtonian fluid behaviour which is manifested in 0.02

viscosity variations during a transient flow, a 0.015

couple of numerical examples is presented and
discussed in detail via several figures. 0.01
A pseudo plastic liquid which behaves as a
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
shear thinning fluid is firstly studied because it is 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

the most common non-Newtonian fluid in  (1/s)
applications. Fig. 6. Cross model viscosity variations vs. strain
The coefficients of the power law model rate
are chosen to be (    0 ) and n = 0.8 and 0.6. In
the cross model the initial viscosity (  0 ) is power law n=0.8
0.12
chosen to be equal to that of Newtonian fluid power law n=0.6
0.1 power law n=0.9
(defined in the previous section for the verifying
Newtonian
case), and the ultimate viscosity (  ) equates to 0.08


20 (50) percent of the initial viscosity. The two 0.06

remaining parameters of this model are assumed
to be n = 2/3 and k = 2. Note that this way of 0.04

allocation of the initial viscosity in the two 0.02

models enables the computational results to be
0
favourably compared with the corresponding -1 0 1 2 3
simulations for the Newtonian fluids so as to 10 10 10 10 10

discriminate the deviations introduced to the flow  (1/s)
characteristics as a result of the nonlinear fluid Fig. 7. Power law model viscosity variations vs.
property. The aforementioned set of coefficients strain rate.
for the power and Cross models leads the
viscosity values to those presented in Figs. 6 and Several fluid properties defined via the
7 for various shear rate. As one can see, the power and Cross models are taken into account as
power law model (Fig. 7) considerably suffers the input fluid data for the transient flow analysis.
from lack of accuracy in the regions of low shear The aim is to investigate transient pressures due
rate while the Cross model (Fig. 6) is in to instantaneous downstream valve closure (see
accordance with the reality which herein assumed the previous section). Considering Joukowsky’s
to be the Newtonian constant viscosity. pressure increase formula H  cV0 / g  , the value
of the transient pressure just after the excitation is

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directly related to the pressure wave speed and drop in the subsequent transient periods with
initial velocity (steady state). respect to that of linear fluids. At the same time,
These two quantities are kept unchanged during the first half period, the mentioned
so as to only scrutinize the non-Newtonian fluid viscosity reduction of the shear thinning fluids
properties during a transient flow. The defined enhances the fluid flow in the original direction
various fluids in turn develop various pressure and leads to less flow barrier and pressure
gradients and head loss during the steady state gradient causing to smaller transient pressure rise
flow. The calculated head losses in the mentioned in that time interval. In other words, less packing
three power law cases are 2.693, 1.343 and effect is expected due to the reduced fluid
0.6658 cm per metre and in the Cross model are viscosity and this is in agreement with the
2.693, 1.410, and 0.6404 cm per meter. computational figures which are provided for the
According to the above conditions, the proposed pressure history at the valve and midpoint in Figs
numerical method produces the following 8 and 9, respectively. The figures to the left
pressures at the endpoint (valve) and midpoint of correspond to Cross and those to the right
pipe depicted in Figs. 8 and 9. Note that in all correspond to the power law model.
simulations, the flow pattern is laminar. Another manifestation of non-Newtonian
The selected non-Newtonian fluids fluids is observed in velocity profiles at various
represent viscosities though changing over the time and space sections. This is shown for the
flow area but always smaller than that of the aforementioned shear thinning fluids in Figs. 10
constant viscosity of Newtonian flow, (see Fig. 8 and 11. In these figures, the velocity profile in the
and Fig. 9). It means that smaller shear stresses middle section of the pipeline for the Newtonian
develop on the pipe wall which corresponds to and two non-Newtonian fluids are compared.
less unsteady friction and causes to less pressure
1.5
Newtonian n=1 (Newtonian)
 = 50% 0 n=0.8
n=0.6
1  = 20% 0 1
(H-H )/(cv /g)
(H-H )/(cv /g)

0.5 0.5
0
0

0
0

0 0

-0.5 -0.5

-1
-1
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
ct/L ct/L
Fig. 8. Pressure time-history at the valve (left Cross models, right power law).

1.5 Newtonian 1.5

n=1 (Newtonian)
 = 50% 0 n=0.8
1  = 20% 0 1 n=0.6
(H-H )/(cv /g)

(H-H )/(cv /g)

0.5 0.5
0

0
0

0 0

-0.5 -0.5

-1
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
ct/L ct/L
Fig. 9. Pressure time-history at the midpoint (left Cross models, right power law).

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0.5 0.5
t = 0 t = 0
t = 1L/c t = 1L/c
t = 2L/c 0.4 t = 2L/c
0.4
t = 3L/c t = 3L/c
t = 4L/c t = 4L/c
0.3 0.3

r/D
r/D

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0
-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
u/U0 u/U0

Fig. 10. Velocity profiles at the midpoint for the power law fluid model (thick line)
vs. Newtonian model (thin line) (right n=0.6, left n=0.8).
0.5 0.5
t = 0 t = 0
t = 1L/c t = 1L/c
0.4 t = 2L/c 0.4 t = 2L/c
t = 3L/c t = 3L/c
t = 4L/c t = 4L/c
0.3 0.3
r/D

r/D

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
-1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 -2 -1 0 1 2
u/U0 u/U0
Fig. 11. Velocity profiles at the midpoint for the Cross fluid model (thick line) vs.
Newtonian model (thin line) (left    50% 0 , right   20% 0 ).
According to Figs. 10 and 11, the velocity shear stress and viscosity distributions to be
distribution significantly changes as a result of provided in the coming figures.
the non-Newtonian fluid behavior and this change According to the depicted shear stress and
occurs throughout the unsteady fluid flow. The viscosity profiles (Figs. 12-16), their values in the
difference is such that by reduction of fluid core area of the pipe cross section remain almost
viscosity fluctuations, the variations of the unchanged. In fact, the flow in this region
velocity profile increase. In other words, the demonstrates a rigid movement (no relative
amplitude of the velocity gradient is increased in displacement).
the flow cross-section. The growth in the velocity
gradient in the vicinity of the pipe wall causes a 0.5
drop in the viscosity value (shear thinning) and
this in turn affects the values of fluid velocity and 0.4

shear stress beside the pipe walls. Furthermore,

0.3 t=0
the viscosity drop causes the maximum relative
r/D

t = 1L/c
velocity to occur closer to the pipe walls. The
0.2 t = 2L/c
velocity profiles also reveal that the central core t = 3L/c
area of flow has almost a rigid movement, and it t = 4L/c
0.1
is gradually affected by wall shear stress and
viscosity variations of fluid near the pipe wall. In 0
other words, the high values of wall shear stresses -4 -2 0 2 4 6
tend to penetrate in the core region and this 
Fig. 12. Shear stress distribution for Newtonian
pattern seems to be more progressive with the
model.
increase in viscosity variation (with respect to the
Newtonian fluid viscosity) in the present shear
thinning fluids. This issue is more explained with

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0.5
0.5

0.4
0.4

0.3 t = 0 t = 0
0.3 t = 1L/c
r/D

t = 1L/c

r/D
t = 2L/c t = 2L/c
0.2
0.2 t = 3L/c
t = 3L/c
t = 4L/c
t = 4L/c
0.1 0.1

0 0
-4 -2 0 2 4 -2 -1 0 1 2
 
Fig. 13. Shear stress distribution for power law model (left n=0.8, right n=0.6).
0.5
0.5

0.4
0.4

0.3 0.3
t = 0
t = 0 r/D
r/D

t = 1L/c 0.2 t = 1L/c

0.2
t = 2L/c t = 2L/c
t = 3L/c t = 3L/c
0.1 0.1
t = 4L/c t = 4L/c

0 0
-4 -2 0 2 4 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
 (Pa)  (Pa)
Fig. 14. Shear stress distribution for Cross model (left   50%0 , right   20% 0 ).

0.5 0.5
t = 0
t = 1L/c
0.4 0.4 t = 2L/c
t = 3L/c
t = 0 t = 4L/c
0.3 0.3
t = 1L/c
r/D

r/D

t = 2L/c
0.2 0.2
t = 3L/c
t = 4L/c
0.1 0.1

0 0
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
 

Fig. 15. Viscosity distribution in the pipe section for power law model (left n=0.8, right n=0.6).
0.5 0.5
t = 0
0.4 0.4 t = 1L/c
t = 2L/c
t = 3L/c
0.3 t = 0 0.3
t = 4L/c
t = 1L/c
r/D

r/D

t = 2L/c
0.2 0.2
t = 3L/c
t = 4L/c
0.1 0.1

0 0
0.016 0.018 0.02 0.022 0.024 0.026 0.028 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03
 
Fig. 16. Viscosity distribution in the pipe section for Cross model (left   50%0 , right  20%0 ).

Author's Surname N. - Co-author's Surname N.

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According to the shear stress profiles at
the pipe midpoint, the more shear thinning
behavior of fluid, the less expansion of the wall
shear stresses to the core region of flow. Indeed,
the area of rigid flow in the pipe cross section is
extended and the wall effects are more limited to
the flow radial boundaries. In the meantime, the
behaviours of the different non-Newtonian fluids
in the core area of flow are remarkably similar to
each other.
The fluctuations of viscosity in Figs. 15
and 16 during the fluid hammer can be interpreted
in terms of velocity profiles in Figs 10 and 11 and
the viscosity variations versus the strain rate in
Figs. 6 and 7. According to Figs. 6 and 7, the
maximum value of the shear rate corresponds to
the least value of viscosity and this occurs at the
pipe wall annulus. This can be found from the
first derivative of velocity profiles with respect to
the pipe radius. In contrary, the minimum value
of the shear rate leads to the largest values of
viscosity which in the power law model tends to
infinity and in the Cross model is a constant
quantity called initial viscosity. According to the
velocity profiles, around the central axis of the
flow, the shear rate is zero and it smoothly
increases. This trend can be observed in the
viscosity distribution where it shows its largest
value. There are more local maxima of viscosity
in these figures which correspond to peaks in the
velocity distribution. As an example, one can
notice to Fig. 16-right at t=4L/c, which its
maxima corresponds to the points indicated by
arrows in Fig. 11-right.
The mentioned figures of viscosity and
shear stress can be used to interpret the pressure
time history results of non-Newtonian fluids. In
fact, the increase in the shear thinning property of
a liquid corresponds to viscosity and shear stress
variations in the annulus of the pipe cross-section
which are closer to the pipe walls. This trend
which is clearly manifested in Figs. 12 to 16 can
also be resulted from the velocity profiles in Figs.
10 and 11. This behaviour of the shear-thinning
fluids indicates that the region of more energy
dissipation is limited to a smaller area which in
turn leads to less energy loss and pressure drops
during the transient event. This issue is
demonstrated by Figs. 8 and 9, which as seen, the
pressure history of the liquid with the more shear-
10 Author's Surname, N. - Co-author's Surname, N.
thinning property shows smaller pressure drop
with time progress.
5 CONCLUSION
In this article, the non-Newtonian fluid
effects in unsteady flows have been studied.
Deriving the governing equations of transient
non-Newtonian flows, a forth-order Runge Kutta
numerical method has been used for
approximation of time phrases and second-order
central difference scheme has been used for
discretization in space. Furthermore, second-order
dissipation phrases have been used for
elimination of numerical fluctuations. In order to
validate the proposed mathematical model and
numerical solution, computational results have
been compared with those of available
experimental ones from the literature.
The differentiating pattern between
Newtonian and non-Newtonian flows which is
mainly stems from the nonlinear dependency of
fluid viscosity on velocity gradient, is observed in
pressure variation, velocity profile and wall shear
stress. Non-Newtonian power law and Cross
models verified previously were then investigated
through case studies to see the axial velocity
profile at various times. Some of the most
important results are listed as follows:
The increase in the shear thinning property
of a liquid corresponds to viscosity and shear
stress variations in the annulus of the pipe cross-
section which are closer to the pipe walls. This
behaviour of the shear-thinning fluids indicates
that the region of more energy dissipation is
limited to a smaller area which in turn leads to
less energy loss and pressure drops during the
transient event. Which as seen, the pressure
history of the liquid with the more shear-thinning
property shows smaller pressure drop with time
progress.
Increasing the shear-thinning property of
non-Newtonian pseudo plastic fluid and thus
relative drop in the apparent viscosity decreased
the amount of head loss in the pipe, so
comparatively, the pressure at the valve grows up.
Also, due to the reduction of the apparent
viscosity at the wall, less line packing effect is
observed compared to Newtonian models.
The shear-thinning behavior of non-
Newtonian fluids causes the region of high
 Strojniški vestnik - Journal of Mechanical Engineering Volume(Year)No, StartPage-EndPage
gradient velocities to move towards the pipe walls
and the maximum relative velocities occur closer
to the radial boundaries, thus leading to sever
fluctuations in the velocity cross-sectional profile.
The provided 2D computational results at
a cross section reveal the significance of non-slip
boundary of the inner pipe wall during flow
transients in terms of lags between the mean flow
direction and velocities at several radii. The non-
Newtonian fluid effect tends to vary the velocity
profiles at each time.
In the midpoint of the pipe a semi rigid
movement with negligible relative velocity
variations was observed which is illustrated in
terms of viscosity variations.
According to the velocity profiles, around
the central axis of the flow, the shear rate is zero
and it smoothly increases. This trend can be
observed in the viscosity distribution where it
shows its largest value. There are more local
maxima of viscosity in these figures which
correspond to peaks in the velocity distribution.
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