Nonlinear waves in incompressible viscoelastic Maxwell medium

In this paper we study two-dimensional flows of incompressible viscoelastic Maxwell media with Jaumann corotational derivative in the rheological constitutive law. In the general case, due to the incompressibility condition, the equations of motion have both real and complex characteristics. Group properties of this system are studied. On this basis, two submodels of the Maxwell model are selected, which can be reduced to hyperbolic ones. More precisely, we consider plane shear flow between two parallel planes and Couette type flow caused by the inertial cylinder rotation. As a result, we obtain the closed systems of three equations of mixed type, which describe nonlinear transverse waves in an incompressible Maxwell fluid. It is demonstrated that discontinuities can develop in elastic media even from smooth initial data. Stability of shocks in the Maxwell fluid with and without retardation time is discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.