Steady-state thermal Herschel-Bulkley flow with Tresca's friction law

Abstract

We consider a mathematical model which describes the steady-state flow of a Herschel-Bulkley fluid whose the consistency and the yield limit depend on the temperature and with mixed boundary conditions, including a frictional boundary condition. We derive a weak formulation of the coupled system of motion and energy equations which consists of a variational inequality for the velocity field. We prove the existence of weak solutions. In the asymptotic limit case of a high thermal conductivity, the temperature becomes a constant solving an implicit total energy equation involving the consistency function and the yield limit.

Keywords

• Herschel-Bulkley fluid
• thermal friction law
• variational inequality
• weak solution