Hydromagnetic linear instability analysis of Giesekus fluids in plane Poiseuille flow

The effects of a fluid’s elasticity are investigated on the instability of plane Poiseuille flow on the presence of a transverse magnetic field. To determine the critical Reynolds number as a function of the Weissenberg number, a two-dimensional linear temporal stability analysis will be used assuming that the viscoelastic fluid obeys Giesekus model as its constitutive equation. Neglecting terms nonlinear in the perturbation quantities, an eigenvalue problem is obtained which is solved numerically by using the Chebyshev collocation method. Based on the results obtained in this work, fluid’s elasticity is predicted to have a stabilizing or destabilizing effect depending on the Weissenberg number being smaller or larger than one. Similarly, solvent viscosity and also the mobility factor are both found to have a stabilizing or destabilizing effect depending on their magnitude being smaller or larger than a critical value. In contrast, the effect of the magnetic field is predicted to be always stabilizing.