The effect of inertia and rheology parameters on the flow of viscoplastic fluids inside a lid-driven cavity is investigated using a stabilized finite element approximation. The viscoplastic material behavior is described by the model introduced by de Souza Mendes and Dutra [30] - herein called SMD fluid - which is essentially a regularized viscosity function that involves only theological properties of the material. The incompressible balance equations are coupled with the non-linear SMD model and are approximated by a multi-field Galerkin least-squares method in terms of extra-stress, pressure and velocity. The results obtained confirm the stability features of the multi-field formulation and the appropriateness of the rheological stress regularization introduced by the SMD fluid. The influence of inertia and rheological parameters on the morphology of the material yield surfaces is analyzed and discussed. (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.