NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF VISCOELASTIC COMPLEX FLOWS USING THE STREAM-TUBE METHOD AND OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHMS

Numerical simulation of complex hows of viscoelastic fluids requires us to use efficient algorithms for solving the non-linear governing equations. The stream-tube analysis permits calculation of such flows by considering elementary subdomains in a mapped computational domain where the transformed streamlines are parallel and straight. The consideration of subregions leads us to use optimization procedures. The paper concerns the application of such algorithms to compute main flows in axisymmetric converging geometries, for fluids obeying memory-integral constitutive equations.