Flow of complex fluids

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Complex fluids are liquids containing suspended particles or dissolved polymer chains, which generally cause flow behaviour to be frustratingly different than that of simple fluids like water and gasoline. Some common complex fluids are shampoo, ketchup and blood, and some industrially important ones are paints and agricultural sprays. The general objective with these viscoelastic fluids is to understand the underlying physics, to characterize the flow resistance, and to develop the descriptive equations. My specific objective is to characterize the flow resistance to stretching or elongational motion, for shearing resistance has already been well established. In recent work toward the objective, we developed a technique to measure the stretching resistance of barely elastic liquids such as inkjet inks. The novel technique was patented and has been proven useful for the liquid whitener applied on bond paper, enabling improved efficiency in papermaking. We now want to apply this technique to other barely elastic liquids such as paints, with the goal of enabling new 'improved' formulations to be evaluated in the laboratory instead of trying them on the production line.