ACTA MECHANICA

Acta Mechanica 158, 121 - 125 (2002)

9 Springer-Verlag 2002

Note

Slip flow past a stretching surface

H. I. Andersson, Trondheim, Norway

(Received October 18, 2001; revised February 25, 2002)

Summary. The slip-flow of a Newtonian fluid past a linearly stretching sheet is considered. The partial
slip is controlled by a dimensionless slip factor, which varies between zero (total adhesion) and infinity
(full slip). An exact analytical solution of the governing Navier-Stokes equation is found, which is for-
mally valid for all Reynolds numbers.

1 Introduction

The flow of an incompressible fluid past a moving surface in otherwise quiescent surroundings
has several engineering applications within, for instance, polymer processing. Crane [1] stu-
died the steady two-dimensional flow caused by a stretching sheet whose velocity U varies
linearly with the distance x from a fixed point on the sheet, i.e. U = cx. This problem has later
been extended also to fluids obeying non-Newtonian constitutive equations. While Chiam [2]
and Andersson and Dandapat [3] considered the motion of micropolar and power-law fluids,
respectively, most attention has so far been devoted to the analysis of flow of viscoelastic
fluids. Unlike the inelastic power-law model, the Rivlin-Ericksen fluid studied by Siddappa
and Khapate [4] and Walters' liquid B' considered by Siddappa and Abel [5] both exhibit nor-
mal-stress differences in simple shear flows. Rajagopal et al. [6] analyzed the effects of visco-
elasticity on the flow of a second-order fluid with gradually fading memory and arrived at the
same governing boundary layer equation as that in [5].
A common feature of all these analyses is the assumption that the flow field obeys the con-
ventional no-slip condition at the sheet, i.e. that the velocity component u(z, y) parallel with
the sheet becomes equal to the sheet velocity U = cz at the sheet. In certain situations, how-
ever, the assumption of no-slip does no longer apply and should be replaced by a partial slip
boundary condition

u(x, y) = L Ou/Oy (1.1)

which relates the fluid velocity u to the shear rate Ou/Oy at the boundary. Here, L is the slip
length, and y denotes the coordinate perpendicular to the surface. This slip-flow condition
was first introduced by C.-L. M. H. Navier more than a century ago and has more recently
been used in studies of fluid flow past permeable walls [7], slotted plates [8], rough and coated
surfaces [9], and gas and liquid flow in microdevices [10]. The objective of the present paper is
to consider the viscous flow past a stretching sheet in the presence of partial slip for which an
exact analytical solution will be derived and discussed,
122 H.I. Andersson

2 Problem formulation

Let us consider the laminar flow of an incompressible Newtonian fluid past a flat and
impermeable elastic sheet. By applying two equal and opposite forces along the x-axis, the
sheet is stretched with a speed U ( x ) proportional to the distance from the origin x = 0. The
resulting motion of the otherwise quiescent fluid is caused solely by the moving sheet, and the
flow is governed by the constant-property Navier-Stokes equations for steady two-dimen-
sional flow. The viscous fluid is only partially adhering to the stretching sheet, and the fluid
motion is thus subjected to the slip-flow condition
u(x,y) - U(x) = ZOu/Oy at Y= 0 (2.1)

which simplifies to (1.1) in the case of a fixed boundary. It is noteworthy that in the present
problem the fluid is dragged by the moving sheet, and both sides of (2.1) are therefore nega-
tive.

3 Similarity transformation

A similarity transformation is now introduced in terms of the non-dimensional variables f, g,

and ~ such that

= ( c p / g ) 1/2 . x . f ( r l ) , (3.1)
1
p = pw - c,. g(v), (3.2)

= 1/2 . y , (3.3)

where r is the physical stream function, p is the fluid pressure and g and # denote the density
and dynamic viscosity of the fluid. The velocity components u and v in the x- and y-directions
are thus related to r according to

u = Or = c x . f'(~7), (3.4)
v = - O O / O x = - ( c # / Q ) 1/2. f ( r l ) , (3.5)
and mass conservation is thereby automatically assured. The two components of the Navier-
Stokes equation can now be transformed to the following ODEs:

(/,)2 _ f f, = f,, (3.6)

1 , (3.7)
ff,=_fH+5 9 ,

where the primes signify differentiation with respect to the similarity variable 7. The appropri-
ate boundary conditions become:
f(0) = 0, (3.8)
f ' ( 0 ) = 1 + ~/f"(0), (3.9)
9(0) = 0 (3.10)
and
f' ~ 0 as r/---+ oc. (3.11)
Slip flow past a stretching surface 123

Here, (3.8) and (3.9) assure impermeability and partial slip at the stretching sheet, respec-
tively, whereas (3.ll) makes the fluid velocity parallel to the sheet equal to zero sufficiently
far away. The slip factor

2 / - L (<o/#) ~/2 (3.12)

is a dimensionless measure of the amount of slip, which may vary between zero (total adhe-
sion) and infinity (full slip). More specifically, 2/is the ratio between the slip length L and the
viscous length scale (#~cO)1/2. In the case of gas flow L is related to the mean free path. Thus,
"7 is essentially a Knudsen number which should not exceed 0.1 for the continuum hypothesis
to prevail [10]. Moreover, the conventional no-slip boundary condition is typically applicable
when the Knudsen number is below 0.001.

4 Exact analytical solution

The one-parameter problem defined in the previous Section exhibits a closed-form analytical
solution. Since the streamwise momentum equation (3.6) is independent of the function g
which determines the pressure, the dimensionless stream function f can first be obtained from
(3.6), whereas the pressure function g is obtained subsequently from the momentum balance
(3.7) perpendicular to the surface. In this way, we find

f ( , ) : / 3 [1 - ~xp ( - / 3 , ) ] , (4,1)

9(~?) = f2 + 2 f ' - 2/32 , (4,2)

by which the boundary conditions (3.8) (3.11) are satisfied. The new dimensionless para-
meter/3 is the positive root of:
~/~3 + ~2 _ 1 = 0 (4.3)
which stems from the partial slip condition (3.9). Here, with -y = 0 (i.e., no-slip) /3 becomes
equal to unity, and the solution derived earlier by Crane [1] is recovered.
For 7 > 0 the only real and positive root of (4.3) is

'3 = 371 [2 cos (F/3) - 1] for 3' < 3 7 2 (4.4)

and

'~ = ~ § 5 - 1 for 2/> , (4.5)

-3,/3
where
27 72
cos~p 2- -1 (4.6)

and

A = [1082/2 - s + 12 ~ ~ - 42/1 ~/~ (4.7)

define ~ and A in terms of the slip factor 2/. For the special case 2/= 2/3 ,/3 both (4.4) and
(4.5) give ,3 = x/3/2. Moreover, for infinitely high values of 2/, (4.5) shows that /3 tends to
~/ t/3
124 H. I. Andersson

Table 1. Characteristics of the analytical solution (4.1)

7 fl f'(O) --f"(O) fl-~en(lOOfl2)

0 1 1 1 4.605 2
0.1 0.955 4 0.912 8 0.872 1 4.724 6
0.2 0.919 1 0.8447 0.7764 4.8270
0.5 0.839 3 0.7044 0.591 2 5.069 5
1.0 0.754 9 0.569 8 0.430 2 5.355 5
2.0 0.657 3 0.432 0 0.284 0 5.729 4
5.0 0.525 2 0.275 8 0.144 8 6.316 3
10.0 0.433 1 0.187 6 0.081 2 6.768 8
20.0 0.352 5 0.124 2 0.043 8 7.148 4
50.0 0.264 9 0.070 2 0.018 6 7.355 1
100.0 0.212 2 0.045 0 0.009 5 7.090 6

1 7 r 1 r v

-- ,/=0
0.9
0.8 _-' 1- v:1.0
[-- y=5.0
0.7 -:,~ I '7=20
:' [ + y = 100
0.6
0.5

0.4V ', ),
o.3~,,,, ", i~,~,

0"2I. ~ . ' : .
0.1 " ....
' ~ - . . . ""~
Fig. 1. Dimensionless velocity profiles
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 f'(~7) for different values of the slip
factor 7

5 Results

Dimensionless velocity profiles f'(rl) are presented in Fig. 1 for some different values of the
slip factor 7. It is readily seen that 7 has a substantial effect on the solutions. In fact, the
amount of slip 1 - f ' ( 0 ) increases monotonically with 7 from the no-slip solution for 7 = 0
and towards full slip as 7 tends to infinity. The latter limiting case implies that the frictional
resistance between the viscous fluid and the surface is eliminated, and the stretching of the
sheet does no longer impose any motion of the fluid. Some representative values of
f ' ( 0 ) =/32 are given in Table 1.

6 Discussion

Far away from the stretching surface the velocity u parallel to the sheet decays and eventually
goes to zero. The velocity component v perpendicular to the sheet, on the other hand, tends to
a constant negative value since f approaches/3 sufficiently far off the sheet. Thus, according
to the data in Table 1, the inflow from the ambient decays gradually with increasing amount
of slip and eventually vanishes as 7 goes to infinity. The thickness ~ of the viscous boundary
layer adjacent to the stretching surface can be defined as the distance from the sheet at which
Slip flow past a stretching surface 125

the streamwise velocity u has been reduced to one per cent of the surface velocity cx. Thus,
from (3.3) and (3.4) we obtain:

(5 = (#/eLo)l/2/3-1en (100/32) (6.1)

which shows that 6 is independent o f x for any value of the slip factor. However, the bound-
ary layer thickness turns out to be a monotonically increasing function of 7 for all but the
highest 7; see Table 1. A dimensionless wall friction coefficient can be defined as

- T , , / ~ _ _ f , (O) P~ex -1/2 , (6.2)

Cj, =- (cz) ~

where R% = ~ c z 2 / > is the local Reynolds number based on the velocity cx of the sheet. In
accordance with physical intuition, the d a t a in Table 1 show that Cf decreases with increasing
slip.
It should be recalled that in the case of gas flow the present solution is physically plausible
only for 3' _< 0.1 since the Navier-Stokes equation is no longer valid when the mean free p a t h
becomes o f the same order o f magnitude as the characteristic length scale o f the fluid flow.
Closed-form analytical solutions like that in (4.1, 4.2) are generally rare in fluid mechanics.
Even t h o u g h a solution exists for a given case subjected to the conventional no-slip b o u n d a r y
condition, generalization of that case to account for partial slip n o r m a l l y prohibits the exis-
tence o f an analytical solution. It is noteworthy that the solution in Sect. 4 is an exact solution
o f the Navier-Stokes equations and as such formally valid for any Reynolds number.

References

[1] Crane, L. J.: Flow past a stretching plate. Z. Angew. Math. Phys. 21,645-647 (1970).
[2] Chiam, T. C.: Micropolar fluid flow over a stretching sheet. ZAMM 62, 565-568 (1982).
[3] Andersson, H. I., Dandapat, B. S.: Flow of a power-law fluid over a stretching sheet. Stability Appl.
Anal. Continuous Media 1, 339-347 (1991).
[4] Siddappa, B., Khapate, B. S.: Rivlin-Ericksen fluid flow past a stretching plate. Rev. Roum. Sci.
Techn.- M~c. Appl. 21,497-505 (1976).
[5] Siddappa, B., Abet, S.: Non-Newtonian flow past a stretching plate. Z. Angew. Math. Phys. 36,
890-892 (1985).
[6] Rajagopal, K. R., Na, T. Y., Gupta, A. S.: Flow of a viscoelastic fluid over a stretching sheet. Rheol.
Acta 23, 213-215 (1984).
[7] Beavers, G. S., Joseph, D. D.: Boundary conditions at a naturally permeable wall. J. Fluid Mech. 30,
197-207 (1967).
[8] Laplace, P., Arquis, I~.: Boundary layer over a slotted plate. Eur. J. Mech. B/Fluids 17, 331-355
(1998).
[9] Miksis, M. J., Davis, S. H.: Slip over rough and coated surfaces. J. Fluid Mech. 273, 125-139
(1994).
[10] Gad-el-Hak, M.: The fluid mechanics of microdevices - The Freeman scholar lecture. ASME
J. Fluids Engng 121, 5-33 (1999).

Author's address: H. I. Andersson, Department of Applied Mechanics, Thermodynamics and Fluid

Dynamics, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway (E-mail:
helge.i.andersson@mtf.ntnu.no)

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