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Colloquium, Winter 2006

Day: Thursday, February 9 Time: 4:00pm Place: BH 112 Title:  Numerical and analytical approaches to Rayleigh-Benard convection on viscoplastic fluids Speaker: Jianying Zhang Abstract:  Viscoplastic fluids are a family of non-Newtonian fluids with yield stresses. A viscoplastic fluid behaves as an elastic solid if the applied shear stress is under the yield value while it flows as a non-Newtonian viscous fluid when the yield value is exceeded. The mechanics, as well as mass and heat transport of viscoplastic materials are becoming increasingly important with the discovery that many multi-component fluids, such as foams, slurries, suspensions and emulsions, are viscoplastic. The main challenges in understanding a viscoplastic fluid are the nonlinearities caused by its non-Newtonian features and the multi-phase flow patterns due to the existence of the yield surfaces. How does the yield stress affect the fluid stability? How to accurately locate the yield surfaces? These are interesting research questions. I will outline the progress that has been made in answering them via the Rayleigh-Benard convection model.