Stability of plane Poiseuille flow of a fluid with pressure-dependent viscosity

Abstract

We study the linear stability of a plane Poiseuille flow of an incompressible fluid whose viscosity depends linearly on the pressure. It is shown that the local critical Reynolds number is a sensitive function of the applied pressure gradient and that it decreases along the channel. While in the limit of small pressure gradients conventional results for a pressure-independent Newtonian fluid are recovered, a significant stabilisation of the flow and an elongation of the critical disturbance wavelength are observed when the longitudinal pressure gradient is increased. These features drastically distinguish the stability characteristics of a piezo-viscous flow from its pressure-independent Newtonian counterpart.