Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations of integral multi-mode and fractional viscoelastic models

Abstract

To capture specific characteristics of non-Newtonian fluids, during the past years fractional constitutive models have become increasingly popular. These models are able to capture, in a simple and compact way, the complex behaviour of viscoelastic materials, such as the change in power-law relaxation pattern during the relaxation process of some materials. Using the Lagrangian Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method we can easily track particle history; this allows us to solve integral constitutive models in a novel way, without relying on complex tasks.

Hence, we develop here a SPH integral viscoelastic method which is first validated for simple Maxwell or Oldroyd-B models under Small Amplitude Oscillatory Shear (SAOS) and start-up channel flows. By exploiting the structure of the integral method, a multi-mode Maxwell model is then implemented. Finally, the method is extended to include fractional constitutive models, validating the approach by comparing results with theory.