A study of thin film flow of an Oldroyd 8-constant fluid on a moving belt using variational iteration approach

In this paper, we model a steady thin film flow of an Oldroyd 8-constant fluid on a vertically moving belt. The governing nonlinear differential equation is first integrated exactly and then solved by applying the variational iteration method and the Adomian decomposition method. The numerical results obtained by these methods are then compared through graphs and tables and no visible difference is observed. This study highlights the significant features of the proposed methods and their ability for solving nonlinear problems arising in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. Moreover, a reasonable estimation for the belt speed to lift the non-Newtonian fluid is also recorded. This estimation can be used for experimental verification. (author)