J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.

1 (4), 228-235 (2011)

A Mathematical Theorem on Couple-Stress Fluid in the

Presence of Rotation
AJAIB S. BANYAL*
Department of Mathematics, NSCBM, Govt. College
Hamirpur -177005, H. P., India
ABSTRACT
The thermal instability of a couple-stress fluid acted upon by
uniform vertical rotation and heated from below is investigated.
Following the linearized stability theory and normal mode
analysis, the paper mathematically established the condition for
Characterizing the nonoscillatory motions which may be neutral or
unstable for rigid boundaries at the top and bottom of the fluid. It
is established that all nondecaying slow motions starting from
rest, in a couple-stress fluid of infinite horizontal extension and
finite vertical depth, which is acted upon by uniform vertical
rotation opposite to gravity and a constant vertical adverse
temperature gradient, are necessarily nonoscillatory, in the regime

TA
4

+ 2 6 F + 8 F

) 1,

where T A is the Taylor number and F is the couple-stress

parameter, the result is also in accordance with corresponding
configuration of Newtonian fluid when the couple-stress
parameter F=0, Gupta et al.4
Keywords: Thermal convection; Couple-Stress Fluid; Rotation;
PES; Taylor number.
MSC 2000 No.: 76A05, 76E06, 76E15; 76E07.

1. INTRODUCTION
Right from the conceptualizations of
turbulence, instability of fluid flows is being
regarded at its root. The thermal instability
of a fluid layer with maintained adverse
temperature gradient by heating the
underside plays an important role in

Geophysics, interiors of the Earth,

Oceanography and Atmospheric Physics etc.
A detailed account of the theoretical and
experimental study of the onset of Bnard
Convection in Newtonian fluids, under
varying assumptions of hydrodynamics and
hydromagnetics, has been given by
Chandrasekhar2. The use of Boussinesq

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229

Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)

approximation has been made throughout,

which states that the density changes are
disregarded in all other terms in the equation
of motion except the external force term.
Sharma et al.7 has considered the effect of
suspended particles on the onset of Bnard
convection in hydromagnetics. The fluid has
been considered to be Newtonian in all
above studies. With the growing importance
of non-Newtonian fluids in modern
technology and industries, the investigations
on such fluids are desirable. Stokes11
proposed and postulated the theory of
couple-stress fluid. One of the applications
of couple-stress fluid is its use to the study
of the mechanism of lubrication of synovial
joints, which has become the object of
scientific research. According to the theory
of Stokes11, couple-stresses are found to
appear in noticeable magnitude in fluids
having very large molecules. Since the long
chain hylauronic acid molecules are found as
additives in synovial fluid, Walicki and
Walicka12 modeled synovial fluid as couplestress fluid in human joints. An electrically
conducting couple-stress fluid heated from
below in porous medium in the presence of
uniform horizontal magnetic field has been
studied by Sharma and Sharma10. Sharma
and Thakur8 have studied the thermal
convection in couple-stress fluid in porous
medium in hydromagnetics. Sharma and
Sharma9 and Kumar and Kumar3 have
studied the effect of dust particles, magnetic
field and rotation on couple-stress fluid
heated from below and for the case of
stationary convection, found that dust
particles have destabilizing effect on the
system, where as the rotation is found to
have stabilizing effect on the system,
however couple-stress and magnetic field

are found to have both stabilizing and

destabilizing
effects
under
certain
conditions.
Keeping in mind the importance of
non-Newtonian fluids, the present paper is
an attempt to characterize the onset of
instability analytically, in a layer of
incompressible couple-stress fluid heated
from below in the presence of uniform
vertical rotation opposite to force field of
gravity, when the bounding surfaces of
infinite horizontal extension, at the top and
bottom of the fluid are rigid. It is shown that
for the configuration under consideration
that, if

TA
4

+ 2 6 F + 8 F

) 1 , then an arbitrary

neutral or unstable modes of the system are

definitely nonoscillatory and, in particular
the PES is valid, where T A is the Taylor
number.
2. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM
AND PERTURBATION EQUATIONS
Considered an infinite, horizontal,
incompressible couple-stress fluid layer, of
thickness d, heated from below so that, the
temperature and density at the bottom
surface z = 0 are T0 , 0 respectively and at
the upper surface z = d are Td , d and that a
uniform adverse temperature gradient

dT
dz

is maintained. The fluid is acted

upon by a uniform vertical rotation (0,0, ) .

Let , p, T and q (u , v, w) denote respectively

the density, pressure, temperature and
velocity of the fluid. Then the momentum
balance, mass balance equations of the

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Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)
couple-stress fluid (Stokes4; Chandrasekhar2
and Scanlon and Segel5) are

q
1

+ q . q =
p + g 1 +
t
0
0

'
+
2 2 q + 2 q

(1)

. q = 0

(2)

The equation of state

= 0 [1 (T T0 )]

(3)

230

Assume small perturbations around

the basic solution and let , p , and

q (u , v, w)

denote
respectively
the
perturbations in density, pressure p,
temperature T and couple-stress fluid
velocity (0,0,0). The change in density
caused mainly by the perturbation in
temperature is given by
(6)
= 0 .
Then the linearized perturbation
equations of the couple-stress fluid becomes

Where the suffix zero refer to the values at

the reference level z = 0. Here g (0,0, g ) is

acceleration due to gravity.
Let c v , c pt denote the heat capacity
of the fluid at constant volume and the heat
capacity of the particles. Assuming that the
particles and the fluid are in thermal
equilibrium, the equation of heat conduction
gives

+ q . T = q 2T

0 cv

Or
T
+ q . T = 2T
t

stress

(4)

The kinematic viscosity , coupleviscosity ' thermal diffusivity

q
and coefficient of thermal
0cv
expansion are all assumed to be constants.

The basic motionless solution is

(5)

(7)

'

2 2 q + 2 q

. q = 0 ,

(8)

= w + 2 ,
t

(9)

Within the framework of Boussinesq

approximation, equations (7) and (8), give

2 2
+ 2
2 w g
+
x 2 y 2
z
t

' 2 4
=
w

(10)

' 2 2
w

=

0
z

(11)

Together with (9), where

2 =

q = (0,0,0 ) , T = T0 z , = (0,0, )
and = 0 (1 + z ) .

q
1
= p g +
0
t

and =

v u

x y

x
y
z
denote the z-component of vorticity.
2

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Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)

3. NORMAL MODE ANALYSIS

Analyzing the disturbances into
normal modes, we assume that the
Perturbation quantities are of the form

[w, , ] = [W (z ), (z ), Z (z )]

Exp (ik x x + ik y y + nt )

(12)

Where k x , k y are the wave numbers along

the x and y-directions respectively

k = kx2 + k y 2

1
2

, is the resultant wave number

and n is the growth rate which is, in general,
a complex constant.
Using (12), equations (9), (10) and (11), on
using (8), in non-dimensional form, become

(D

W =

g d 2 a 2

[{1 F (D

(D

a 2 + F D 2 a 2

) (D
2

a2

)}(

) ]

d 2
W

a 2 p1 =

TA
DW
d

D=

d
dz

nd 2

, p1 =

d 2
and

in equations (13), (14) and (15)

and dropping ( ) for convenience, in nondimensional form becomes,

(D

) (

a 2 + F D 2 a 2 D 2 a 2 W

(16)

= Ra T A DZ

[{1 F (D

(D

) ]

)}(

a 2 D 2 a 2 Z = DW

a 2 p1 = W

Where R =

g d 4

(17)
(18)

, is the thermal Rayleigh

(14)

(15)

W = DW = 0, = 0 and Z = 0 at z = 0
and z = 1.

(13)

where
a = kd , =

TA
Z
d

Z=

number.
Since both the boundaries rigid and
are maintained at constant temperature, the
perturbations in the temperature are zero at
the boundaries. The appropriate boundary
conditions with respect to which equations
(16), (17) and (18) must be solved are

TA dDZ

a2 D2 a2 Z =

W = W

Substituting

'
2 2 d 4
,F =
,
T
=
A

0 d 2
2

and D = dD and dropping ( ) for

convenience. Here p1 = , is the thermal

prandtl number, F is the couple-stress
parameter and T A is the Taylor number.

(19)

Equations (16)-(18), along with

boundary conditions (19), pose an
eigenvalue problem for and we wish to
Characterize i when r 0 .
We prove the following theorem:

Theorem: If R 0 , F 0, T A 0, r 0 and
i 0 then the necessary condition for the
existence of non-trivial solution (W , , Z ) of
equations (16), (17) and (18) together with
boundary conditions (19) is that

Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 4, 31 July, 2011, Pages (212-277)

Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)
.

TA
4

+ 2 F + F
6

[{1 F (D

)}(

232

a 2 D 2 a 2 Z = DW ,

(23)

Therefore, using (23), we get

Proof: Multiplying equation (16) by W

(the complex conjugate of W) throughout
and integrating the resulting equation over
the vertical range of z, we get

W D 2 a 2 Wdz +F W D 2 a 2 Wdz W
0

(D

) Wdz = Ra W dz T W DZdz
1

2 2

, (20)

(D

) (

(24)
Substituting (22) and (24) in the right hand
side of equation (20), we get

a p1 = W ,
2

2 2

2
2

W DZdz= DW Zdz= Z D a F D a Z dz ,

1
1
3
W D 2 a 2 Wdz + F W D 2 a 2

Taking complex conjugate on both sides of

equation (18), we get
2

(21)

1
2
Wdz W D 2 a 2 Wdz
0
1

= Ra 2 D 2 a 2 p1 dz
0
1

) (

TA Z D a F D a
0

22

(25)

Z dz

Therefore, using (21), we get

1

dz = D 2 a 2 p1 dz

(22)

Also taking complex conjugate on both sides

of equation (17), we get

Integrating the terms on both sides of

equation (25) for an appropriate number of
times by making use of the appropriate
boundary conditions (19), along with (17),
we get

1
1
2
2
2
2

2
2

DW + a 2 W dz + F D 3W + 3 a 2 D 2W + 3 a 4 DW + a 6 W dz
0

1
1
1
2

2
2

2
2
2
2
2
2

+ D 2W + 2 a 2 DW + a 4 W dz = Ra 2
D + a + p1 dz T A DZ + a Z dz

0
0
0

1
1
2

2
2

2
T A F D 2 Z + 2 a 2 DZ + a 4 Z dz T A Z dz

0
0

And equating imaginary parts on both sides

of equation (26), and cancelling i ( 0)
throughout from imaginary part, we get
1

DW

1
1
2
2
2
2
+ a2 W
dz + Ra p1 dz = T A Z dz

0
0

(27)

(26)
We first note that since
W (0) = 0 = W (1)

and

Z (0) = 0 = Z (1)

satisfy

and
in addition to
satisfying to governing equations and hence
we have from the Rayleigh-Ritz inequality6

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233
1

Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)
1

2
DW dz W dz ,

(28)

0
1

and

0
1

2
DZ dz Z dz ,

(29)

W (0) = 0 = W (1) and

for
Z (0) = 0 = Z (1) , Banerjee et al.1 have
show that

Further,

and

2
2
D Z dz DZ dz ,

0
1

2
2
D W dz DW dz

2
D Z

+ 2 a 2 DZ

(30)

Further, multiplying equation (17) and its

complex conjugate (23), and integrating by
parts each term on both sides of the resulting
equation for an appropriate number of times
and making use of boundary condition on Z
namely Z (0) = 0 = Z (1) along with (17), we get

1
1
1
2
2
2
2

2
2

+ a 4 Z dz + F D 4 Z + 4a 2 D 3 Z + 6a 4 D 2 Z + 4a 6 DZ + a 8 Z dz

0
0
0

1
1
1
2
2
2

2
2
+ 2 F D 3 Z + 3a 2 D 2 Z + 3a 4 DZ + a 6 Z dz + 2 r DZ + a 2 Z dz

0
0
0

1
1
1
2
2

2
2
2
+ 2 r F D 4 Z + 2 a 2 D 2 Z + a 4 Z dz + Z dz = DW dz

0
0
0

Further, by utilizing boundary conditions

(19) and equation (17), it follows that
1

Real part of DZ D 3 Zdz ,

2
D Z dz =

(31)

1 2 2 2 1 1 3 2 2
D Z dz D Z dz
0
0

0
1

(Utilizing inequality (30)),

So that we have
1

DZ D 3Zdz

2 2
2 2 1
1 1
D 2 Z dz D 3 Z dz
0
0

Which yields
3

DZ D Zdz

3
2
2
D Z dz D Z dz ,

(32)

DZ D 3Z dz ,
0
1

DZ

Using inequality (29) and (30), inequality

(32) becomes

D Z dz ,

0
1

0
1

3
6
D Z dz Z dz ,

DZ D 3Z dz ,

Also,

1
2 2
1
2 2
DZ dz D 3 Z dz
0
0

(33)

(Utilizing Cauchy- Schwartz-inequality),

3
D Z dz =

Real part of D 2 Z D 4 Zdz ,

Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 4, 31 July, 2011, Pages (212-277)

Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)
1

D 2 Z D 4 Zdz

0
1

D 2 Z D 4 Zdz

D 2 Z D 4 Z dz

0
1

D 2 Z D 4 Z dz
1

Cauchy-

Schwartz-

1
2

1 1 4 2
D Z dz
0

(34)
inequality

4
8
D Z dz Z dz ,

(35)

r 0 ,

therefore the equation

2
3
4
D Z dz + 2 F D Z dz + F D Z dz DW dz ,

(34)

Now F 0 and
(31) gives,

0,

(38)

TA
4

+ 2 6 F + 8 F

)1 .

(39)

TA
4

+ 2 6 F + 8 F

i 0 ,

and

then

)1 .

4. CONCLUSION

And this completes the proof of the theorem.

(33),

(
(

4
2
3
D Z dz D Z dz ,

r 0

Which yields

(Utilizing inequality (32)),

So that we have

Hence, if

Using inequality
becomes

and therefore , we must have

2 2
2 2 1
1 1
D 3 Z dz D 4 Z dz
0
0

(37)

(Utilizing
inequality),

dz ,

2 2 1
2 2
1
D 2 Z dz D 4 Z dz
0
0

DW dz + a W dz + Ra p1 dz

TA
1

4
6
8
+ 2 F + F

D 2 Z D 4 Z dz ,

) DW

+ 2 F + F 0
6

0
1

1 3 2
D Z dz
0

1
4

Now R 0 and T A 0, utilizing the

inequalities (37), the equation (27) gives,

1
2

Z dz

234

(36)

And on utilizing the inequalities (29), (30),

(33) and (35), inequality (36) gives

This
theorem
mathematically
established that the onset of instability in a
couple-stress fluid in the presence of
uniform vertical rotation, cannot manifest
itself as oscillatory motions of growing
amplitude if the Taylor number T A and the
couple-stress parameter F, satisfy the
inequality

TA
4

+ 2 6 F + 8 F

) 1.

The essential content of the theorem,

from the point of view of linear stability
theory is that for the configuration of
couple-stress fluid of infinite horizontal
extension heated form below, having top and
bottom bounding surfaces rigid, in the
presence of uniform vertical rotation parallel
to the force field of gravity, an arbitrary

Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 4, 31 July, 2011, Pages (212-277)

235

Ajaib S. Banyal, J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (4), 228-235 (2011)

neutral or unstable modes of the system are

definitely nonoscillatory in character and in
particular PES is valid, if

TA
4

+ 2 6 F + 8 F

) 1,

the result is also in accordance with

corresponding configuration of Newtonian
fluid when the couple-stress parameter F=0,
Gupta et al.4.

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Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 4, 31 July, 2011, Pages (212-277)