Hydromagnetic couette flow of an Oldroyd-B fluid in a rotating system

The motion of electrically conducting, Oldroyd-B and incompressible fluid between two infinitely extended non-conducting parallel plates under a uniform transverse magnetic field, fixed relative to the fluid has been considered. The lower plate is at rest and the upper plate is oscillating in its own plane. The governing partial differential equation of this problem, subject to boundary conditions are solved analytically. The expressions for the steady and unsteady velocity fields for the conducting Oldroyd-B fluid are obtained. The graphs are plotted for different values of dimensionless parameters of the problem and the analysis of the results showed that the flow field is appreciably influenced by the applied magnetic field, the rotation and the material parameters of the fluid. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.