On the Influence of Concentration on the Rheology of Polymer Solutions: Can Scaling Laws Be Found?

The present work is concerned with the study of the rheology of polymer solutions spanning different concentration regimes and originates from a former round-robin research programme on this subject, the S1 project, involving a number of research groups and institutions. The base fluid for this programme was the so-called S1 fluid, which is a 2.5% w/w solution of Polyisobutylene (PIB) in a solvent consisting of a mixture of polybutene oil and dekalin. In this paper a set of solutions having different concentrations of PIB are studied in steady shear, oscillatory shear and in axi-symmetrical contraction flows. The focus of the study is on the possibility of finding concentration scaling laws for polymer solutions spanning each or several of the concentration regimes. The results in shear flows show that it is possible to find scaling laws both for temperature and concentration in all regimes. Extensional results show that the curves superimpose within each concentration regime, but not over the whole range of concentrations. Accordingly, concentration scaling laws were then found for both shear and extension, the latter depending on the concentration regime: dilute, semi-dilute or concentrated.