Friction Coefficients for Bingham and Power-Law Fluids in Abrupt Contractions and Expansions

2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio L. D. Kfuri ◽  
Edson J. Soares ◽  
Roney L. Thompson ◽  
Renato N. Siqueira

Industrial processes with non-Newtonian fluids are common in many segments such as petroleum, cosmetic, and food industries. Slurries, emulsions, and gas–liquid dispersions are some examples with industrial relevance. When a fluid flows in a pipe system, pressure losses are always present. For Newtonian fluids, a quite reasonable understanding of this phenomenon was already achieved and is available in the literature. The same cannot be stated for non-Newtonian fluids owing to their complex characteristics, such as pseudoplasticity, viscoplasticity, elasticity, and thixotropy. The understanding of the influence of these characteristics on flow behavior is very important in order to design efficient pipeline systems. The design of such systems requires the estimation of the pressure drop due to friction effects. However, there are few works regarding friction losses for non-Newtonian fluids in pipeline systems, making this task a difficult one. In this study, two classes of fluids are investigated and compared with the Newtonian results. The first category of fluids are the ones that exhibits pseudoplastic behavior and can be modeled as a power-law fluid, and the second category are the ones that possesses a yield stress and can be modeled as a Bingham fluid. Polyflow was used to compute the friction losses in both abrupt contractions and expansions laminar flow conditions. It shows that for the expansion cases, the aspect ratio affects more the local friction coefficients than for the contraction cases. The influence of the power index n on local friction losses is similar for both cases, abrupt contractions and abrupt expansions. At low Reynolds numbers, dilatant fluids present the lowest values of the friction coefficient, K, independent of geometry. At high Reynolds numbers, a reversal of the curves occurs, and the dilatant fluid presents larger values of K coefficient. For the cases investigated, there is also a Reynolds number in which all the curves exhibit the same value of K for any value of the power-law index. The effect of τy′ shows a different behavior between contractions and expansions. In the case of contractions, the material with the highest dimensionless yield stress has the highest K value. In the case of the expansions, the behavior is the opposite, i.e., the higher the yield stress, the lower is the values of the K coefficient. Equations for each accessory as a function of the rheological parameters of the fluid and the Reynolds number of the flow are also proposed. The data were adjusted according to two main equations: the two Ks method proposed by Hooper (1981, “The Two-K Method Predicts Head Losses in Pipe Fittings,” Chem. Eng., 81, pp. 96–100.) is used for all the contractions cases, and the equation proposed by Oliveira et al. (1997, “A General Correlation for the Local Coefficient in Newtonian Axisymmetric Sudden Expansions,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, 19(6), pp. 655–660.) is used for all the expansions cases. The equations found were compared with the numerical results and showed satisfactory precision and thus can be used for engineering applications.

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 5938-5960
Author(s):  
A. Kouadri ◽  
Y. Lasbet ◽  
M. Makhlouf

In a recent study, the Two-Layer Crossing Channels Micromixer (TLCCM) exhibited good mixing capacities in the case of the Newtonian fluids (close to 100%) for all considered Reynolds number values. However, since the majority of the used fluids in the industrial sectors are non-Newtonians, this work details the mixing evolution of power-law fluids in the considered geometry. In this paper, the power-law index ranges from 0.73 to 1 and the generalized Reynolds number is bounded between 0.1 and 50. The conservation equations of momentum, mass and species transport are numerically solved using a CFD code, considering the species transport model. The flow structure at the cross-sectional planes of our micromixer was studied using the dynamic systems theory. The evolutions of the intensity, also the axial, radial and tangential velocity profiles were examined for different values of the Reynolds number and the power-law index. Besides, the pressure drop of the power-law fluids under different Reynolds number was calculated and represented. Furthermore, the mixing efficiency is evaluated by the computation of the mixing index (MI), based on the standard deviation of the mass fraction in different cross-sections. In such geometry, a perfect mixing is achieved with MI closed to 99.47 %, at very small Reynolds number (from the value 0.1) whatever the power-law index and generalized Reynolds numbers taken in this investigation. Consequently, the targeted channel presents a useful tool for pertinent mass transfer improvements, it is highly recommended to include it in various microfluidic systems.


Author(s):  
Akhilesh K. Sahu ◽  
Raj P. Chhabra ◽  
V. Eswaran

The two-dimensional and unsteady flow of power-law fluids past a long square cylinder has been investigated numerically in the range of conditions 60 ≤ Re ≤ 160 and 0.5 ≤ n ≤ 2.0. Over this range of Reynolds numbers, the flow is periodic in time for Newtonian fluids. However, no such information is available for power law fluids. A semi-explicit finite volume method has been used on a non-uniform collocated grid arrangement to solve the governing equations. The macroscopic quantities such as drag coefficients, Strouhal number, lift coefficient as well as the detailed kinematic variables like stream function, vorticity and so on, have been calculated as functions of the pertinent dimension-less groups. In particular, the effects of Reynolds number and of the power-law index have been investigated in the unsteady laminar flow regime. The leading edge separation in shear-thinning fluids produces an increase in drag values with the increasing Reynolds number, while shear-thickening behaviour delays the leading edge separation. So, the drag coefficient in the above-mentioned range of Reynolds number, Re, in shear-thinning fluids (n < 1) initially decreases but at high values of the Reynolds number, it increases. As expected, on the other hand, in case of shear-thickening fluids (n > 1) drag coefficient reduces with Reynolds number, Re. Furthermore, the present results also suggest the transition from steady to unsteady flow conditions to occur at lower Reynolds numbers in shear-thickening fluids than that in Newtonian fluids. Also, the spectra of lift signal for shear-thickening fluids show that the flow is truly periodic in nature with a single dominant frequency in the above range of Reynolds number. In shear-thinning fluids at higher Re, quasi-periodicity sets in with additional frequencies, which indicate the transition from the 2-D to 3-D flows.


Author(s):  
Gauri S. Mittal ◽  
Jixian Zhang

The friction factors (f) for Newtonian, power law, Bingham plastic and Herschel-Bulkely fluids were predicted after developing and training four neural networks (NN). Three and four layer NN and Wardnet slab were used for f predictions. When average velocity (u), pipe diameter (D), fluid density and fluid viscosity were used for predicting f values for Newtonian fluids, average absolute error was only 0.00004 with standard deviation of 0.00050 and correlation coefficient (r) of 0.9981. When using flow behaviour index (n),u, D, density and consistency coefficient (k) as inputs of an NN for power law fluids, the average absolute error of predicting f was 0.0116 with r of 0.9998. For prediction of f using yield stress, u, D, density and plastic viscosity as inputs to an NN for Bingham plastic fluids, the average absolute error was 0.0044 with r of 0.9961. The average absolute error was 0.0169 with r of 0.9996 for the prediction of f taking n, yield stress, u, D, density and k as inputs to an NN for Herschel-Bulkely fluids. Inputs except n and density and output were transformed on a logarithmic base to 10 scale. Prediction using log f or extension of f limit reduced prediction errors.


10.14311/832 ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Rieger

The paper deals with measurements of non-Newtonian fluids on a viscometer with coaxial cylinders. The procedure for determining the rheological model parameters is recommended  for power-law fluids and Bingham plastics. 


Author(s):  
M. A. Hassan ◽  
Manabendra Pathak ◽  
Mohd. Kaleem Khan

The temperature and concentration play an important role on rheological parameters of the gel. In this work, an experimental investigation of thermorheological properties of aqueous gel Carbopol Ultrez 20 for various concentrations and temperatures has been presented. Both controlled stress ramps and controlled stress oscillatory sweeps were performed for obtaining the rheological data to find out the effect of temperature and concentration. The hysteresis or thixotropic seemed to have negligible effect. Yield stress, consistency factor, and power law index were found to vary with temperature as well as concentration. With gel concentration, the elastic effect was found to increase whereas viscous dissipation effect was found to decrease. Further, the change in elastic properties was insignificant with temperature in higher frequency range of oscillatory stress sweeps.


Cellulose ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Turpeinen ◽  
Ari Jäsberg ◽  
Sanna Haavisto ◽  
Johanna Liukkonen ◽  
Juha Salmela ◽  
...  

Abstract The shear rheology of two mechanically manufactured microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) suspensions was studied in a consistency range of 0.2–2.0% with a pipe rheometer combined with ultrasound velocity profiling. The MFC suspensions behaved at all consistencies as shear thinning power law fluids. Despite their significantly different particle size, the viscous behavior of the suspensions was quantitatively similar. For both suspensions, the dependence of yield stress and the consistency index on consistency was a power law with an exponent of 2.4, similar to some pulp suspensions. The dependence of flow index on consistency was also a power law, with an exponent of − 0.36. The slip flow was very strong for both MFCs and contributed up to 95% to the flow rate. When wall shear stress exceeded two times the yield stress, slip flow caused drag reduction with consistencies higher than 0.8%. When inspecting the slip velocities of both suspensions as a function of wall shear stress scaled with the yield stress, a good data collapse was obtained. The observed similarities in the shear rheology of both the MFC suspensions and the similar behavior of some pulp fiber suspensions suggests that the shear rheology of MFC suspensions might be more universal than has previously been realized.


1991 ◽  
Vol 226 ◽  
pp. 475-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. T. Pinho ◽  
J. H. Whitelaw

Measurements of wall pressure, and mean and r.m.s. velocities of the confined flow about a disk of 50 % area blockage have been carried out for two Newtonian fluids and four concentrations of a shear-thinning weakly elastic polymer in aqueous solution encompassing a Reynolds-number range from 220 to 138000. The flows of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids were found to be increasingly dependent on Reynolds numbers below 50000, with a decrease in the length of the recirculation region and dampening of the normal Reynolds stresses. At Reynolds numbers less than 25000, the recirculation bubble lengthened and all turbulence components were suppressed with increased polymer concentration so that, at a Reynolds number of 8000, the maximum values of turbulent kinetic energy were 35 and 45% lower than that for water, with 0.2% and 0.4% solutions of the polymer. Non-Newtonian effects were found to be important in regions of low local strain rates in low-Reynolds-number flows, especially inside the recirculation bubble and close to the shear layer, and are represented by both an increase in viscous diffusion and a decrease in turbulent diffusion to, respectively, 6% and 18% of the largest term of the momentum balance with a 0.4 % polymer solution at a Reynolds number of 7700. The asymmetry and unsteadiness of the flow at Reynolds numbers between 400 and 6000 is shown to be an aerodynamic effect which increases in range and amplitude with the more concentrated polymer solutions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document