In this work we rst study the non-Newtonian effects on the inertial instabilities in shear flows and second the inertial suspensions of finite size rigid particles by means of numerical simulations.

In the first part, both inelastic (Carreau) and elastic models (Oldroyd-B and FENE-P) have been employed to examine the main features of the non-Newtonian fluids in several congurations; flow past a circular cylinder, in a lid-driven cavity and in a channel. In the framework of the linear stability analysis, modal, non-modal, energy and sensitivity analysis are used to determine the instability mechanisms of the non-Newtonian flows. Signicant modifications/alterations in the instability of the different flows have been observed under the action of the non-Newtonian effects. In general, shear-thinning/shear-thickening effects destabilize/stabilize the flow around the cylinder and in a lid driven cavity. Viscoelastic effects both stabilize and destabilize the channel flow depending on the ratio between the viscoelastic and flow time scales. The instability mechanism is just slightly modied in the cylinder flow whereas new instability mechanisms arise in the lid-driven cavity flow.

In the second part, we employ Direct Numerical Simulation together with an Immersed Boundary Method to simulate the inertial suspensions of rigid spherical neutrally buoyant particles in a channel. A wide range of the bulk Reynolds numbers, 500<Re<5000, and particle volume fractions, 0<\Phi<3, is studied while fixing the ratio between the channel height to particle diameter, 2h/d = 10. Three different inertial regimes are identied by studying the stress budget of two-phase flow. These regimes are laminar, turbulent and inertial shear-thickening where the contribution of the viscous, Reynolds and particle stress to transfer the momentum across the channel is the strongest respectively. In the inertial shear-thickening regime we observe a signicant enhancement in the wall shear stress attributed to an increment in particle stress and not the Reynolds stress. Examining the particle dynamics, particle distribution, dispersion, relative velocities and collision kernel, confirms the existence of the three regimes. We further study the transition and turbulence in the dilute regime of finite size particulate channel flow. We show that the turbulence can sustain in the domain at Reynolds numbers lower than the one of the unladen flow due to the disturbances induced by particles.