Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2006
The flow between two solid boundary surfaces of revolution and also between two rotating co-axial cones, of certain orientable fluids which are unoriented at rest, has been studied. It is found that for sufficiently low velocity gradients the fluids behave like a Newtonian fluid; while at larger but still very moderate velocity gradients the predicted behaviour is similar to that observed in elasticoviscous fluids. In the latter case it is shown that the flow of this class of fluids in horizontal circles is not possible for the boundary conditions defined above, even when the inertia terms are negligible, and that the normal stresses in the plane perpendicular to the streamlines are not equal.