Stokes＇ first problem has been investigated for a Maxwell fluid in a porous half-space for gaining insight into the effect of viscoelasticity on the start-up flow in a porous medium. An exact solution was obtained by using the Fourier sine transform. It was found that at large values of the relaxation time the velocity overshoot occurs obviously and the system exhibits viscoelastic behaviours. On the other hand, for short relaxation time the velocity overshoot disappears and the system exhibits viscous behaviours. A critical value of the relaxation time was obtained for the emergence of the velocity overshoot. Furthermore, it was found that the velocity overshoot is caused by both the viscoelasticity of the Maxwell fluid and the Darcy resistance resulting from the structure of the micropore in the porous medium.
From point of view of physics, especially of mechanics, we briefly introduce fractional operators (with emphasis on fractional calculus and fractional differential equa- tions) used for describing intermediate processes and critical phenomena in physics and mechanics, their progress in theory and methods and their applications to modern me- chanics. Some authors’ researches in this area in recent years are included. Finally, prospects and evaluation for this subject are made.
XU Mingyu1 & TAN Wenchang2 1. Institute of Applied Mathematics, School of Math & System Science, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
