Rheological and flow modelling of viscoelastic fluids between eccentric cylinders

Viscoelastic fluid flows within eccentric rotating cylinders are simulated using a finite element based commercial software POLYFLOW, and an approach based on the stream-tube method (STM) and domain decomposition.The fluids considered are non-Newtonian, viscoelastic and modelled by an Upper Convective Maxwell (UCM) constitutive equation. The results point out the influence of non-Newtonian fluid properties on flows between eccentric cylinders with moderate and narrow gaps. Significant viscoelastic effects, notably the role of elasticity, are found for all eccentric cylinders configurations.