Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2013) 128: 41
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2013-13041-1

Regular Article

Unsteady flows of a micropolar fluid between parallel plates using state space approach

¹³³² Department of Mathematics, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, 440 010, Nagpur, India
²³³² Department of Mathematics, National Institute of Technology, 506 004, Warangal, India

^* e-mail: m_devakar@yahoo.co.in

Received: 23 January 2013
Accepted: 24 March 2013
Published online: 22 April 2013

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the unsteady flow of an incompressible micropolar fluid between infinite parallel plates using state space approach when one of the plates is set to move suddenly while the other is at rest. Analytical expressions of the fluid velocity and microrotation are obtained in the Laplace transform domain. A standard numerical inversion technique is used to invert the Laplace transform of the velocity and microrotation. The effect of various material parameters on flow variables is discussed and the results are presented through graphs.