SIMILARITY ANALYSIS OF BOUNDARY-LAYER EQUATIONS OF A CLASS OF NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS

A similarity analysis of three-dimensional boundary layer equations of a class of non-Newtonian fluids in which the stress is an arbitrary function of rates of strain is made. It is shown that under scaling transformation, for an arbitrary stress function, only 90-degrees of wedge flow leads to similarity solutions, whereas for a specific more restricted form, similarity solutions exist for arbitrary wedge angles. In the case of spiral group transformation, no similarity solutions exist if we force the stress function to remain arbitrary after the transformation, whereas for a specific more restricted form, similarity solutions exist for arbitrary wedge angles. For both transformations, similarity equations for power-law and Newtonian fluids are presented as special cases of the analysis. Finally the conditions for invariance and the form of the stress function for a two-dimensional case are also presented.