A Note on Hydromagnetic Flow of an Oldroyd-B Fluid near an Infinite Plate Induced by Half Rectified Sine Pulses

An initial value problem concerning the motion of an incompressible, electrically conducting, viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid bounded by an infinite rigid non-conducting plate is solved. The unsteady motion is generated impulsively from rest in the fluid due to half rectified sine pulses subjected on the plate in its own plane in presence of an external magnetic field. It is assumed that no external electric field is acting on the system and the magnetic Reynolds number is very small. The operational method is used to obtain exact solutions for the fluid velocity and the shear stress on the wall. Quantitative analysis of the results is presented with a view to disclose the simultaneous effects of the external magnetic field and the fluid elasticity on the flow and the wall shear stress for different periods of pulsation of the plate. It is also shown that the classical and hydromagnetic Rayleigh solutions appear as the limiting cases of the present analysis.