84

2016,28(1):84-94

DOI: 10.1016/S1001-6058(16)60610-8

Flow, thermal criticality and transition of a reactive third-grade fluid in a pipe

with Reynolds model viscosity*
Samuel S. OKOYA
Department of Mathematics, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, E-mail: sokoya@oauife.edu.ng
(Received September 5, 2014, Revised January 22, 2015)
Abstract: Neglecting the consumption of the material, a steady incompressible flow of an exothermic reacting third-grade fluid with
viscous heating in a circular cylindrical pipe is numerically studied for both cases of constant viscosity and Reynolds viscosity
model. The coupled ordinary differential equations governing the flow in cylindrical coordinates, are transformed into dimensionless
forms using appropriate transformations, and then solved numerically. Solutions using Maple are presented in tabular form and given
in terms of dimensionless central fluid velocity and temperature, skin friction and heat transfer rate for three parametric values in the
Reynolds case. The numerical results for the velocity and temperature fields are also presented through graphs. Bifurcations are
discussed using shooting method. Comparisons are also made between the present results and those of previous work, and thus verify
the validity of the provided numerical solutions. Important properties of thermal criticality are provided for variable viscosity parameter and reaction order. Further numerical results are presented in the form of tables and graphs for transition of physical parameters, while varying certain flow and fluid material parameters. Also, the flow behaviour of the reactive fluid of third-grade is compared with those of the Newtonian reactive fluid.
Key words: non-Newtonian fluids, third-grade fluid, thermal transition, heat generation, temperature dependent viscosity, numerical
solutions

Introduction
The phenomenon of Newtonian flow and heat
transfer in a cylinder on physically reasonable assumptions has been analyzed by a number of authors[1]
and the references therein. It is now generally known
in industrial applications that the non-Newtonian fluids, particularly the fluid of third-grade, are more suitable than Newtonian fluids. Some of the applications in
processing industries include food processing, polymer processing and petrochemical applications. For
problems involving heat transfer processes in fluids of
third-grade, a complete thermodynamics analysis of
the constitutive function has been performed (see related work by some authors[2,3] etc.). In this specialthe
case of third grade fluids, the governing equations reduces to that which one would get for an appropriate
generalized Newtonian fluid.
0F

* Biography: Samuel S. OKOYA (1958-), Male, Ph. D.,

Professor

These studies have little or no emphasis on the

effects of variable viscosity and heat transfer on the
flow. Some other studies involving variable viscosity
models have no consideration of heat generation in the
system, see for example Massoudi and Christe[4].
Reference [4] solved and analyzed numerically, the
effects of temperature dependent viscosity for
Reynolds and Vogels model cases for a pipe. Approximate analytical solutions for Reynolds and Vogels
model cases for a pipe were revisited using perturbation technique, while the criteria for which the solutions are valid were determined by Yrsoy and
Pakdemirli[5]. The problem of Reynolds and Vogels
temperature dependent viscosity models for third
grade fluids in a cylindrical pipe is studied using homotopy analysis method by Ellahi et al.[6].
Most of these studies mentioned above, are based
on non-reactive flow properties. More accurate prediction for the flow and heat transfer can be achieved by
including exothermic reaction under Arrhenius kinetics, but we have neglected reactant consumption of the
materials. Some of the earlier investigations on criticality and disappearance of criticality of a reactive

85

viscous fluid with or without flow are: A new numerical method was employed to calculate criticality and
transition (disappearance of criticality) for a range of
Biot number for Arrhenius and Bimolecular temperature dependence in the cases of infinite slab, infinite
cylinder and sphere in the absence of flow, see
Boddington et al.[7]. Also, Zaturska[8] considered plane
Couette flow, Poiseuille pipe flow, axial and rotating
flows between concentric circular cylinders using
power series and assuming the Frank-Kamenetskii exponential approximation to the Arrhenius term. Furthermore, Shonhiwa and Zaturska[9] adopted the shooting method and solved numerically for the disappearance of criticality, for the reactive viscous flows studied in Ref.[8]. Quite recently, Britz et al.[10] provided
numerical solutions to the equation for thermal expansion of a reacting gas, exploring both steady state and
time-marching solutions for the infinite slab, cylinder
and sphere. It is worthy of attention that the critical
conditions of the form described above are significant
in providing safety criteria both for storage and for
handling.
A number of studies in the literature do not explain the effects of variable viscosity, heat transfer and
generation of reaction heat inside the pipe on the nonNewtonian fluid. In fact, very little work has been reported, which deals with flow of a reacting non-linear
fluid. Bridges and Rajagopal[11], by direct integration,
investigated the pulsatile pipe flow of a chemicallyreacting fluid whose viscosity depends on the concentration of a species (constituent) that is governed by a
convective-reaction diffusion and the velocity gradient.
Approximate solutions are constructed for the problem with heat source term, using regular perturbation
techniques together with a special type of HermitePade approximants, while important properties of the
velocity and temperature fields including thermal criticality conditions are discussed in Makinde[12] for isothermal wall. Other numerical studies involving the
competing effects of conduction, dissipation, heat generation and radiation for the flow of non-linear fluids
are contained in Massoudi and Phuoc[13] and the references contained therein. Ajadi[14] studied the criticality of a one-step exothermic, reactive third-grade liquid
flowing steadily through a cylindrical pipe with isothermal wall for a variable spatial dependent viscosity
via homotopy analysis method and variational technique on the momentum and energy equations, respectively. Recently, Chinyoka and Makinde[15] derived the
coupled nonlinear equations in cylindrical coordinates
governing pressure-driven unsteady flow of a reactive
fluid of viscosity with an exponentially decreasing
function of temperature, and solved numerically,
using semi-implicit finite difference schemes, under
axisymmetric conditions. Also, Chinyoka and
Makinde[16] solved numerically, using an unconditionally stable and convergent semi-implicit finite diffe-

rence scheme, the transient flow of a reactive variable

viscosity third-grade fluid in a cylindrical pipe with
convective heat exchange at the pipe surface. More recently, Ireka and Chinyoka[17] studied numerically,
using semi-implicit finite difference techniques, the
effect of wall slip on the flow and heat transfer for the
reactive Johnson-Segalman fluid in a lubricated pipe
with exponential viscosity.
The works carried out by Ajadi[14], Bridges and
Rajagopal[11], Makinde[12], Massoudi and Phuoc[13] are
obviously a major step towards understanding the role
of non-linear fluids with (or without) variable viscosity under heat generation with Arrhenius kinetics,
while restricting their analysis up to thermal explosion
(critical value). It should be conceded that a realistic
mathematical description of thermal explosion needs
to include the effects of Arrhenius temperature dependence with variable pre-exponential factor (see, for
example Adegbie[18] and Okoya[19]) and Reynolds viscosity model (see Massoudi and Christe[4], Ireka and
Chinyoka[17] and Jayeoba and Okoya[20]).
In this study, reactive generalized Newtonian
fluid flow in pipe is considered while fluid friction
and Nusselt number are formulated. The coupled dimensionless governing equations of momentum and
energy are solved numerically by using Maple routine
codes. A third-grade fluid model is accommodated,
while Reynolds model accounted for the temperaturedependent viscosity in the analysis. The central velocity and temperature, fluid friction and Nusselt number are presented in tabular form, while the velocity
and temperature profiles are presented graphically.
Thermal critical values are computed for various values of viscosity parameter and reaction order while
competing effects of non-Newtonian parameter, pressure gradient parameter, viscous dissipation parameter and index of the pre-exponential factor on constant
viscosity and Reynolds model viscosity (cases) are
treated separately. The solutions for reactive NavierStokes fluid can be deduced as a limiting case of our
solutions.

Fig.1 Flow configuration and coordinate system of the problem

1. Governing equations
Consider the fully developed laminar motion through a circular Poiseuille device. We employ cylindrical coordinates (r , , z ) , with the z - axis coinci-

86

ding with the axis of the pipe. Here r is the distance

measured radially, such that r = R is the radius of the
pipe and is the azimuthal angle (see Fig.1).
Assuming incompressible flow, in the absence of
chemical reactions and electromagnetic effects, the
equations of motion are the continuity, linear momentum and energy equations,
div v = 0

dv
= divT + b
dt

(1)
(2)

dt

(3)

where is the density, b is the body force consisting of negligible electrical field and gravity, denotes the specific internal energy, q is the heat flux vector, r1 is the radiant energy assumed to be negligible,
Q is the heat of reaction, C0 is the initial concentra-

tion of the reactant species, k0 is the reaction rate expression that is a function of temperature, L is the
velocity gradient, d / dt denotes the material time differentiation, t is the time, T is the Cauchy stress
tensor and v is the velocity vector. It can be seen that
the heat of reaction appears as a source term in the
energy equation.
For the heat flux vector we adopt the classical
Fouriers law of heat conduction, so that
q = K T

(4)

where T is the absolute temperature and the thermal

conductivity, K , is generally assumed to be constant.
It is a well known fact that majority of the previous studies have dealt with systems having constant
viscosity as a good approximation (i.e. = 0 ). On
the other hand, important issues related to systems possessing temperature dependent viscosities are scientifically appealing and challenging, with a wide range
of industrial applications. Our review of literature has
been based on fluid viscosity, which usually has a strong dependence on temperature. There have been several studies involving, in particular, Reynolds model
viscosity, for example in the case where the function
(T ) takes the form,

= 0 exp[b(T T0 )]

ture, T0 , see Massoudi and Christe[4]. The parameter

b may take positive values for liquids such as water,
benzene, or crude oil. In some gases like air, helium,
or methane b may be negative, i.e., the coefficient
viscosity increases with temperature. Clearly, the special case of b = 0 corresponds to the constant viscosity model.
We assume that k0 is given by (see Boddington
et al.[7], Adegbie[18] and Okoya[19])
kT
E
k0 = A0
exp

v
RT

and
d
rr
= T L div q + r1 + QC0 k0

where 0 is the fluid viscosity at reference tempera-

(5)

(6)

where A0 is the rate constant, E is the activation

energy, R is the universal gas constant, is the
Plancks number, k is the Boltzmanns constant, v is
the vibration frequency and m is a numerical exponent. It may be mentioned that m {2, 0, 0.5} corresponds to sensitized temperature dependence, Arrhenius
or zero-order reaction and bimolecular temperature
dependence, respectively.
The constitutive equation for a third-grade fluid
is
T = p I + A2 + 1 A2 + 2 A12 + 2 ( A1 A2 + A2 A1 ) +

3 (trace A12 ) A1

(7)

in which p is the pressure, I is the unit tensor, is

the dynamic shear viscosity. Here 1 , 2 , 2 and

3 are the material coefficients which depend usually

on the temperature but assumed to be constant in this
paper. Here , 1 , 2 , 2 and 3 obey the following relations for thermodynamical compatibility

0 , 1 0 , 2 0 , 3 0 , 1 + 2 24 3
(8)
The kinematic tensors A1 and A2 are given by
the relations
A1 = ( v ) + ( v )T , A2 =

d
A1 + A1 ( v ) + ( v )T A1
dt
(9)

where is the gradient operator and the superscript

T is the transpose. A detailed thermodynamic analysis of the model, represented by several material variables in Eq.(8), is given in Massoudi and Christe[4].

87

For the problem under consideration, we seek velocity and temperature fields of the form:
v = (0, 0, w(r )) , T = T (r )

(10)

with a variation in r -direction. It has been established

in Ref.[7] that for an exothermic reaction obeying the
generalized Arrhenius law in the situation in which
heat flow is steady (purely conductive), critical conditions for thermal explosion are fulfilled when the activation energy is large or initial temperature is small
(i.e. RT0 / E 0 1 ). With this assumption, the continuity equation is automatically satisfied, and in the absence of body force, the components of Eq.(2) along the
directions of r , and z take the following form:
2
1 d
dw p

r
(2
+
)

1
2
=
r dr
dr r

(11)

p
=0

(12)

dw
dT
(0) =
(0) = 0 ,
dr
dr
3
1 d
dw 1 d
dw p
r
+
2r 3
=
r dr
dr r dr
dr z

(13)

while Eq.(3) reduces to

1 d dT
K
r
r dr dr

dw
dw
+ 2 3
+

+
dr
dr

m

kT
E
QC0 A0
exp
RT
v

=0

(14)

where Q is the heat of reaction, C0 is the initial concentration of the reactant species, p / r and p / z
are the emerging pressure gradients in the radial and
axial directions, respectively. In studying the fluid dynamics, the coupled Eqs.(5), (13), (14) are to be integrated for a given value of p / z . After this crucial
step, the velocity field is determined and reintroduced
into Eq.(11) to obtain p / r . Once these pressure
gradients have been computed, the actual pressure
gradient can be obtained after simple algebra from
Eqs.(11) and (13). In this paper, as similar arguments
support (see e.g., Refs.[4] and [6]), only the simplest
model flow problem containing the ingredients necessary to understand the phenomena is presented.

Hence, Eq.(11) is included for completeness. If the

pipe walls are maintained at the constant temperature
T , then the natural boundary conditions are clearly
w( R ) = 0 , T ( R ) = T0 ,

dw
dT
(0) =
(0) = 0
dr
dr

(15)

The problem is simplified by writing the equations in the non-dimensional form. We define the following non-dimensional quantities,
r=

4 w2
RT
r
w
, w=
, = 0, = 0 0 ,
E
R
w0
kT0

(T T0 ) E
w2

, = 3 02 , = b b T0 , =
,
2
RT0
0 r0
0

E
QEA0 R 2 C0 k mT0m 2
R2 dp
exp
, c =
m m
v h RK
0 w0 dz
RT0

where w0 is a reference velocity. Here r is the dimensionless perpendicular distance from the pipe axis,
w is the dimensionless velocity, is the viscous
heating parameter, is the Frank-Kamenetskii parameter, is the dimensionless temperature excess,
is the activation energy, C is the pressure gradient
parameter and is the non-Newtonian material parameter of the fluid. Although the material constant 3
and hence may also depend on temperature, they
are taken as constants for simplicity in this study.
In terms of the above non-dimensional variables
and parameters, Eqs.(13)-(15) take the form
d dw dw
d2 w
+r 2 +
+
dr dr r dr
dr
2

dw dw

r dr dr

+ 3r

d2 w
=C
dr 2

(16)

2
2
d 2 1 d
dw
dw
+
+

dr
dr +
dr 2 r dr

=0
1 +

(1 + )m exp
w(1) = (1) = 0 ,

dw
d
(0) =
(0) = 0
dr
dr

(17)

(18)

where

( ) = exp( )

(19)

88

Table 1 Values wmax and max are compared with Massoudi and Christe[4]

C = 1

=1
Ref.[10]

Present paper

Ref.[10]

Present paper

max

wmax

max

wmax

max

wmax

max

wmax

0.014

0.230

0.014480

0.229908

0.016

0.253

0.015811

0.252650

0.054

0.404

0.051084

0.404170

0.012

0.192

0.012149

0.192455

0.102

0.541

0.010245

0.541341

10

0.011

0.011

0.010810

0.171515

0.165

0.656

0.164897

0.641341

15

0.010

0.010

0.009989

0.158764

Table 2 Effects of m , and in Reynolds model when = = = C = 1

max

max

(1)
wmax

max

0.259444

0.300548

0.423854

0.605501

0.260955

0.315951

0.423854

0.625501

0.262736

0.334126

0.423854

0.648764

0.263757

0.344562

0.423854

0.661954

0.229908

0.014480

0.423854

0.055783

0.244339

0.157655

0.423854

0.330809

0.263757

0.344562

0.423854

0.661954

0.292398

0.613435

0.423854

1.094035

0.263242

0.339595

0.423854

0.654706

0.1

0.263498

0.342060

0.423854

0.658309

0.2

0.263757

0.344562

0.423854

0.661955

0.3

0.264020

0.347100

0.423854

0.665640

2.0
1.0
0

0.2

0.5
0
0.5

0.5
1.0

0.2

1.5

0.5

1.0

is the dimensionless viscosity. These dimensionless

equations cannot be integrated analytically, and it is
very important to develop efficient numerical method
to solve them. Evidently, the special case of = 0 corresponds to constant viscosity case.
2. Particular cases
(1) In the absence of non-Newtonian field, reaction order and constant viscosity i.e. = 0 , m = 0
and = 0 , respectively, the results for critical values
with = 0 and disappearance of criticality of the present paper are reduced to Zaturska[8] and Shonhiwa
and Zaturska[9], respectively.
(2) In the absence of reaction order and constant
viscosity i.e. m = 0 and = 0 , respectively, the results of the present paper are reduced to the critical
values obtained by Makinde[12].
(3) In the absence of heat source i.e , the results of the present paper are reduced to those studied by

numerous authors such as Massoudi and Christe[4] and

Yrsoy and Pakdemirli[5].
3. Numerical solution
To start the integration of the differential
Eqs.(16), (17) by Maple standard solver, poses a problem since it contains a singularity in the neighbourhood of the axis of the pipe (i.e. r 0 ). This problem is handled numerically by developing equations
that do not contain a singularity. Applying LHospital
rule[4] (or Maclaurin expansion[9,10]) we have
lim r 0

1 dw d 2 w
1 d d 2
= 2 , lim r 0
=
r dr dr 2
r dr dr

(20)

so that the differential Eqs.(16) and (17) reduce to

2

2
d2 w
d dw
dw d w
+ 2 2 + 6
=C

2
dr dr
dr dr
dr

(21)

89

d 2
+
dr 2

2
2
dw
dw
+

dr
dr +

1
+

(1 + )m exp

=0

(22)

The new differential Eqs.(21), (22) are valid near r =

0. It is evident that the boundary conditions at r = 1
are specified in a straightforward manner. Such methods have been used successfully for thermal explosion problems (see for example, Shonhiwa and
Zaturska[9] and Britz et al.[10]), and non-reactive thirdgrade fluid (see e.g., Massoudi and Christe[4]).

Fig.4 Velocity field for various Frank-Kamenetskii parameter

( ) when C = 1 , = 10 , = = = 0.1 and

m = 0.5

Fig.2 Velocity field for various non-Newtonian parameter ( )

when C = 1 , = 10 , = = 0.1 and = m = 0.5

Fig.5 Temperature distribution for various Frank-Kamenetskii

parameter ( ) when C = 1 , = 10 , = = =
0.1 and m = 0.5

Fig.3 Temperature profile for various non-Newtonian parameter ( ) when when C = 1 , = 10 , = = 0.1 and

= m = 0.5

Firstly, the systems of non-linear differential

equations together with the boundary conditions (i.e.
Eqs.(16)-(19), (21), (22)) were solved numerically following procedure based on the Maple. Maple uses the
Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg fourth fifth order (RFK45) method as one of its standard numerical solvers to generate the numerical solution of a boundary value problem. Practical tests indicate that the neighborhood of
the axis of the pipe (to start the integration) for the
constant viscosity case, has been taken small enough
and kept invariant throughout the run of the program,

Fig.6 Disappearance of fluid steady state temperature at large

while slightly higher for the Reynolds model. In all

the calculations, the finite length of the device is ignored and the computations performed for infinitely long
cylinders. For comparison of the results, numerical values are recorded in Table 1 for wmax and max . Here
wmax and max are the values of the maximum velocity and temperature at the pipe axis. It is observed
from Table 1 that the numerical values of wmax and

max in the present paper when = = 1 and = 0 ,

90

Table 3 Values of cr for different values of and are compared with results obtained by Makinde[12] when = ,

= 0 , C = 1

Ref.[12]

Ours

cr ( = 0)

Ref.[12]

Ours

cr ( = 0.1)

Difference

Difference

1.945436

1.946194

7.58104

2.206838

2.207681

8.43104

0.1

1.946071

1.946778

7.07104

2.207476

2.208268

7.92104

0.2

1.946755

1.947322

5.67104

2.208161

2.208812

6.51104

0.3

1.947482

1.947828

3.46104

2.208889

2.209319

4.29104

Table 4 Comparison of different numerical solutions for transition when = = = 0

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

C=m=0

C = 2 and m = 0

C = 0 and m = 0.5

Ref.[7]

Ours

Ref.[9]

Ours

Ref.[7]

Ours

tr

0.242107

0.242109

0.24211

0.24211

0.331561

0.331566

tr

3.009122

3.007690

3.00630

3.00888

2.699915

2.699664

max tr

5.943354

5.936756

5.94325

5.93236

6.259328

6.247736

tr max tr

1.439000

1.437000

1.43900

1.43600

2.075000

2.072000

are in good agreement with the results obtained by

Massoudi and Christe[4]. These authors have used finite difference technique as compared to our Maple solver.
Two other quantities of interest are the skin-friction at the wall and Heat transfer rate which is estimated in terms of Nusselt number ( Nu ) . The skin-friction, related to the shear stress at the wall, is related
to dw / dr r =1 = w(1) and the Nusselt number is related to d / dr r =1 = (1) . There are basically three in-

dependent non-dimensional parameters, , and m

which were not considered in Massoudi and Christe[4],
but in our present work we will only study the influences of this triplet. The table of values of wmax , max ,
w(1) and (1) are presented in Table 2. In addition,
Figs.2-5 present the results showing few representative figures of the velocity distributions and temperature profiles across the pipe, for different values of the
governing parameters.
It is worth noting that the steady state velocity
and temperature distributions in Figs.2-5 may only depend on certain physical parameter range. Consequently, the reaction term , will need to be carefully
controlled as large values can lead to disappearance
of steady solution, as illustrated in Fig.6.
We next solve the systems of non-linear differential equations together with the boundary conditions
(i.e. Eqs.(16)-(19), (21), (22)) by the method based on

the Maple shooting method strategy, modified to some

extent to cope with singularity and non-linearity, with
the unknown parameter taken to be . For = 0
there are solutions only for cr , the critical modified
Frank-Kamenetskii parameter, and in this range there
exist two solutions for the steady state. Criticality signifies the onset of the nonexistence of a steady state
solution. When < cr for 0 there are three solutions of the problem corresponding to a maximum
and a minimum (i.e. explosion and extinction, respectively). As a result of the disappearance of criticality
(i.e. transition) = tr , the three solutions merge into
one. The mathematical expression for criticality corresponds to dd / d max = 0 , while the disappearance of
2
criticality corresponds to dd / d max = d 2d / d max
= 0.
To see if the program runs correctly for critical
values, and to make quantitative comparisons between
this and other established methods, we consider the
following simplified problems. The important findings
are highlighted in Tables 3, 4 below.
For illustration of the results of criticality and
disappearance of criticality, numerical values are plotted in Fig.7 for Reynolds case and various .
It is worthy of mention that the velocity Eq.(16)
and the energy Eq.(17) are different from Eqs.(1), (2)
in Makinde[12] due to the terms associated with variable viscosity parameter and the reaction order m .

91

Since the effects of , and on the distribution of dimensionless velocity and energy have been
discussed in Makinde[12], in our present work, we will
only investigate the effect of and m on the flow
equations. To perform this, we keep = 5 , = 1 ,
C = 2 and = 0.1 . Figures 8, 9 show the effect of
variable viscosity parameter and reaction order on the
dimensionless velocity and temperature profiles obtained using the standard Maple routine.

Fig.7 Understanding thermal transition with variable viscosity

when C = 2 , = 4 , = 0.2 and = m = 0

viscosity index ( ) , pressure gradient variation (C ) ,

index of the pre-exponential factor (m) and viscous
dissipation ( ) , so as to investigate the effects on the
disappearance of criticality (transition). The study encompasses within its realm both reactive third grade
and first grade (Newtonian) fluids, while results are
displayed graphically, and in some cases, depicted in
tabular form. Also, results are presented for constant
viscosity and Reynolds viscosity model in Figs.10-15
and Tables 5, 6.

Fig.10 tr as a function of viscous heating parameter

when C = 2 and m = 0 : effects of and

Fig.8 Plots of thermal critical values against when m = 0.5

Fig.11 tr versus viscous heating parameter

when C =

2 and m = 0 : effects of and

Fig.9 Profiles of thermal critical values versus m when = 0.2

Furthermore, computation through employed numerical code has been carried out for various non-dimensional values of non-Newtonian parameter ( ) ,

Fig.12 max tr versus viscous heating parameter when C =

2 and m = 0 : effects of and

92

Fig.13 tr as a function of viscous heating parameter

when = 2.5 and m = 0 : effects of C and

Fig.14 tr as a function of viscous heating parameter

when = 2.5 and m = 0 : effects of C and

Fig.15 max tr versus viscous heating parameter when =

2.5 and m = 0 : effects of C and

whereas when increases, there are tremendous increases in the values of wmax , max and absolute values of the temperature gradient. The latter happens
generally in heating systems. When the studies with
heat flow problem in absence of activation energy parameter, = 0 , are compared, one finds that the heat
flow is slightly stronger in the present case.
The influence of non-Newtonian parameter ( )
on the flow distribution is displayed in Figs.2, 3. It is
evident from Figs.2, 3 that the fluid velocity and temperature generally decrease due to increase in . Invariably the solution for the Newtonian case ( = 0)
corresponds to the upper solution. Also, the effect of
Frank-Kamenetskii parameter ( ) , due to the generalized Arrhenius kinetics on the fluid velocity and temperature, is displayed in Figs.4, 5. It is shown that
fluid velocity and temperature increase due to increase
in . The effect of is more pronounced for the
temperature field than the velocity distribution, as expected on physical grounds. It is worth noting that
non-Newtonian parameter ( ) has opposed behaviour,
as compared to the Frank-Kamenetskii parameter.
Figure 8 reveals that cr decreases, while max cr
slightly increases with increasing viscosity parameter
. The cr and max cr tend to decrease rapidly with
at the same pothe increment of the reaction order
sition, as shown in Fig.9.
In Fig.10 (or Fig.11), we have plotted tr (or tr )
profiles, showing the effects of non-Newtonian parameter , viscous heating and the viscosity parameter (in the case of Arrhenius reaction model
when the pressure is kept constant) on the flow setup.
In the former, it can be seen that tr decreases when
the viscous heating parameter (or viscosity parameter ) increases, but increases with increase in the
non-Newtonian parameter . Similar behavior was
observed for tr in the latter. It is evident that for

= = 0 , tr and tr are lower limits of 0 and

0.
In Fig.12, plots of max tr profile show the effect
of , and , when m = 0 and C = 2 . It can

4. Analysis of results
Table 2 shows the influences of m , and
on the velocity and temperature at the axis of the cylinder, as well as velocity and temperature gradients at
the wall. We observed that as each of the triplet increases, the velocity gradient remains constant. It can
be seen that when m and increase there is no significant incremental change in the values of wmax and
max absolute values of the temperature gradient,

be seen that max tr increases rapidly as the viscous

heating parameter increases, but increases slowly
as the viscosity parameter increases. Furthermore,
as the non-Newtonian parameter increases, tr decreases. It is noted that for = = 0 , max tr is an
upper limit of 0 and 0 . In fact, typical values
of are indeed small for such reactant flows: values
of around 50 or 80 are not usual, but are included
for completeness (see e.g., Ref.[9]).

93

Table 5 Illustrating transition for C = 0.25 , = 5 and = 2.5

Reynolds model = 0.3

Constant viscosity

tr

tr

max tr

tr

tr

max tr

2.0

0.13046

3.81075

6.20568

0.13047

3.80686

6.19972

0.24186

3.00232

5.94960

0.24190

2.99934

5.94172

0.5

0.33110

2.69276

6.27576

0.33117

2.69119

6.25736

In addition, comparing the results of transitional

values of Shonhiwa and Zaturska[9] for reactive
Newtonian fluid, the triplet reaction parameters (in
Figs.10-12) have exactly the same pattern, though tr
and tr in the case of reactive non-Newtonian fluid
are higher except for max tr .
It is expedient to note from Figs.2, 3 (or Figs.1012) that the influence of on velocity and temperature (or tr , tr and max tr ) is similar to that of
Newtonian model qualitatively, but differs quantitatively with Refs.[10] (or [16]).
The influence of pressure gradient variation C ,
the viscous heating parameter and the viscosity parameter , on the triplet ( tr , tr and max cr ) is
shown in Figs.13-15 for Arrhenius reaction model in
the non-Newtonian case. For given values of , it is
clearly seen that tr and tr (or max cr ) increase (or
decreases) with an increase in pressure gradient parameter C , while for a given C , the variation of
and have opposite effects on the triplet parameters.
Table 6 Some transitional values when C = 0.25 , = 5 ,
= 0.3 and m = 0.5

tr

tr

max tr

0.33161

2.69276

6.30728

0.25

0.33149

2.69221

6.28369

0.50

0.33141

2.69188

6.27266

1.00

0.33131

2.69150

6.26256

2.50

0.33117

2.69119

6.25736

Table 5 (see in particular the first four blocks)

shows the variation of tr , tr and max cr with index
of the pre-exponential factor (m) for 2 = = 5 .
For a significant practical case, we focus our attention
on m {2, 0, 0.5} . It is evident that tr (or tr ) is increasing (decreasing) with m , while max cr is a concave function of m . Also, we observed that the parameters tr and max cr (or tr are monotonically decreasing (or slightly increasing) with the viscosity pa-

rameter . In addition, for given values of 0 (in

the non-Newtonian reactive flow), tr (or tr ) for the
case of Sensitized reaction is smallest (or biggest)
when compared with the Arrhenius and Bimolecular,
while max cr , for the Arrhenius case is smallest when
compared with the others.
In order to illustrate the effects on the triplet parameters for Bimolecular model reaction, see Table 6.
It can be noted from the table that an augment in
yields a diminution in the triplet ( tr , tr and max cr ).
5. Conclusions
This parametric study investigates the heat transfer characteristics for pipe flow of a reactive thirdgrade fluid with Reynolds model viscosity with applications in processing industries. The independent dimensionless numbers which are varied are C , , ,
m and . The following concluding remarks emerge
from this study.
(1) As increases, wmax , max and Nu increase accordingly.
(2) Fluid velocity and temperature decrease due
to increase in , while the reverse effect is observed
with respect to .
(3) In general, there are two critical values (explosion and extinction) and with the disappearance of
criticality (transition), the critical values merge, corresponding to a point of inflexion, and thereafter the
graph grows continuously. But in our model, we see a
minor exception to this general rule in the Reynolds
viscosity model with respect to the viscous dissipation
parameter, . In the max plane, we found that
the curve has a third critical value at max = 16.18156
and cr = 2.54327 when = 0.23 . However, at transition ( tr = 0.23516) and larger values of , the
new critical value persists.
(4) It is found that the investigated third-grade
non-Newtonian fluid transition shows a larger apparent viscosity than the corresponding Newtonian fluid
transition. In fact, as the non-Newtonian property increases (or deceases), the transitional values of and

94

increase (or max decreases), for both constant and

variable viscosity models.
(5) It should be pointed out that as the pressure
gradient C tends to zero for the Newtonian case, the
triplet, as a function of , tends to be parallel to the
axis. However, this is not the case for the nonNewtonian scenario. These results and observations
may have interesting implications for the experimentalist studying (non)-Newtonian reactive flows.
(6) It is clearly evident that non-Newtonian material parameter appears to be a relevant phenomenon
and cannot be ignored.
(7) The results on the triplet parameters, as a function of , for the Bimolecular reaction (m = 0.5) is
also fascinating. As increases from 0 to 0.3, the
triplet decreases gradually, whereas the reverse is the
case in the Arrhenius reaction for max tr only.
(8) The influence of the viscosity parameter
on the transitional values of the triplet is more pronounced as becomes larger, and the opposite is true
for increasing the exponent m .
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Pastor E. A.
Adeboye endowed Professorial Chair and conducted
at the Department of Mathematics, University of
Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria while on leave from Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Also, the author
appreciates the helpful comments of two reviewers
which led to the improvement of the paper.
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