Temporal Stability of Carreau Fluid Flow down an Incline Rousset F. 1 30/11/2006 Temporal Stability of Carreau Fluid Flow down an Incline

This paper deals with the temporal stability of a Carreau fluid flow down an inclined plane. As a first step, a weakly non-Newtonian behavior is considered in the limit of very long waves. It is found that the critical Reynolds number is lower for shear-thinning fluids than for Newtonian fluids, while the celerity is larger. In a second step the general case is studied numerically. Particular attention is paid to small angles of inclination for which either surface or shear modes can arise. It is shown that shear-dependency can change the nature of instability. 1