Development of boundary layers in Euler fluids that on "activation'' respond like Navier-Stokes fluids

Abstract: We consider the flow of a fluid whose response characteristics change due the value of the norm of the symmetric part of the velocity gradient, behaving as an Euler fluid below a critical value and as a Navier-Stokes fluid at and above the critical value, the norm being determined by the external stimuli. We show that such a fluid, while flowing past a bluff body, develops boundary layers which are practically identical to those that one encounters within the context of the classical boundary layer theory propounded by Prandtl. Unlike the classical boundary layer theory that arises as an approximation within the context of the Navier-Stokes theory, here the development of boundary layers is due to a change in the response characteristics of the constitutive relation. We study the flow of such a fluid past an airfoil and compare the same against the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations. We find that the results are in excellent agreement with regard to the velocity and vorticity fields for the two cases.