STEADY FLOWS OF NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS PAST A POROUS PLATE WITH SUCTIONOR INJECTION

The problem of the steady flow of three classes of non-linear fluids o f the differential type past a porous plate with uniform suction or in jection is studied. The flow which is studied is the counterpart of th e classical 'asymptotic suction' problem, within the context of the no n-Newtonian fluid models. The non-linear differential equations result ing from the balance of momentum and mass, coupled with suitable bound ary conditions, are solved numerically either by a finite difference m ethod or by a collocation method with a B-spline function basis. The m anner in which the various material parameters affect the structure of the boundary layer is delineated. The issue of paucity of boundary co nditions for general non-linear fluids of the differential type, and a method for augmenting the boundary conditions for a certain class of flow problems, is illustrated. A comparison is made of the numerical s olutions with the solutions from a regular perturbation approach, as w ell as a singular perturbation.