Numerical investigation of acoustic streaming flows induced by an oscillating cylinder in non-Newtonian fluids

Steady streaming is the time averaged flow of an oscillating flow, which can be induced by vibrating bodies, such as an acoustic bubble or an oscillating solid body. Microscale, steady streaming flows have demonstrated broad use in mixing enhancement, cell sorting, cell trapping and gene transfer. Non-Newtonian biological fluids are often used in lab-on-a-chip systems; however, the steady streaming in these fluids is less studied and understood. This work presents numerical investigation of microscale steady streaming induced by an oscillating cylinder in non-Newtonian fluids, including viscoelastic fluids (FENE-P model), and power-Law fluids in the small amplitude regime. The numerical results show that the edge to vortex center distances of Newtonian, FENE-P and power law fluids are very similar to each other for a wide range of oscillating frequency, while the flow patterns show subtle differences due to the non-Newtonian nature.