LINEAR TEMPORAL STABILITY OF THE FLOW OF A FLUID THROUGH A VISCOELASTIC TUBE

The stability of Hagen-Poiseuille flow in a viscoelastic tube is deter mined using a linear stability analysis. It is found that such a flow is unstable, while the Hagen-Poiseuille flow is stable, as is well kno wn. in this paper we study the instability arising from an axisymmetri c disturbance. The neutrality curves in several planes formed by the p hysical parameters of the problem are plotted. In particular the effec t of the Reynolds number, which was neglected in previous work, is exa mined. Particular attention is payed to the effect of the viscosity of the viscoelastic tube. (C) Academie des Sciences/Elsevier Paris.