Viscoelastic Hele-Shaw flow in a cross-slot geometry

In this paper a cross-slot geometry for which the height of the channel is small compared to the other channel dimensions is considered. The normal components of the viscoelastic stresses are found analytically for a second order fluid up to numerical inversion. The validity of the theoretical analysis was corroborated by comparison with numerical simulations based on a stabilized Galerkin least squares finite element method using an Oldroyd B fluid. Close agreement was found between numerical predictions and analytical results for Weissenberg numbers up to 0.2. An explicit expression is formulated for viscoelastic parameters in terms of the variation and strength of the first normal stress difference around the stagnation point. The analysis is generalized for the case where the inlet channel width is different from the outlet channel width. For such configurations it was found that uniformity of the elongation rate was reduced.