Normal stress differences in suspensions of rigid fibres

Measurements of normal stress differences are reported for suspensions of rigid, non-Brownian fibres for concentrations of $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}nL^2d=1.5\text {--}3$ and aspect ratios of $L/d=11\text {--}32$, where $n$ is the number of fibres per unit volume, $L$ is the fibre length and $d$ is the diameter. The first and second normal stress differences are determined experimentally from measuring the deformation in the free surface in a tilted trough and in a Weissenberg rheometer. Simulations are performed as well, and the hydrodynamic and contact contributions to the normal stresses are calculated. The experiments and simulations indicate that the second normal stress difference is negative and that its magnitude increases as the concentration is raised and the aspect ratio is lowered. The first normal stress difference is positive and its magnitude is approximately twice that of the second normal stress difference. Simulation results indicate that, for the concentrations and aspect ratios studied, contact forces between fibres form the dominant contribution to the normal stress differences.

Suspensions in a tilted trough: second normal stress difference

We measure the second normal-stress difference in suspensions of non-Brownian neutrally buoyant rigid spheres dispersed in a Newtonian fluid. We use a method inspired by Wineman & Pipkin (Acta Mechanica, vol. 2, 1966, pp. 104–115) and Tanner (Trans. Soc. Rheol., vol. 14, 1970, pp. 483–507), which relies on the examination of the shape of the suspension free surface in a tilted trough flow. The second normal-stress difference is found to be negative and linear in shear stress. The ratio of the second normal-stress difference to shear stress increases with increasing volume fraction. A clear behavioural change exhibiting a strong (approximately linear) growth in the magnitude of this ratio with volume fraction is seen above a volume fraction of 0.22. By comparing our results with previous data obtained for the same batch of spheres by Boyer, Pouliquen & Guazzeli (J. Fluid Mech., 2011, doi:10.1017/jfm.2011.272), the ratio of the first normal-stress difference to the shear stress is estimated and its magnitude is found to be very small.

The influence of secondary flows induced by normal stress differences on the shear-induced migration of particles in concentrated suspensions

It was first demonstrated experimentally by H. Giesekus in 1965 that the second normal stress difference in polymers can induce a secondary flow within the cross-section of a non-axisymmetric conduit. In this paper, we show through simulations that the same may be true for suspensions of rigid non-colloidal particles that are known to exhibit a strong negative second normal stress difference. Typically, the magnitudes of the transverse velocity components are small compared to the average axial velocity of the suspension; but the ratio of this transverse convective velocity to the shear-induced migration velocity is characterized by the shear-induced migration Péclet number χ which scales as B2/a2, B being the characteristic length scale of the cross-section and a being the particle radius. Since this Péclet number is kept high in suspension experiments (typically 100 to 2500), the influence of the weak circulation currents on the concentration profile can be very strong, a result that has not been appreciated in previous work. The principal effect of secondary flows on the concentration distribution as determined from simulations using the suspension balance model of Nott & Brady (J. Fluid Mech. vol. 275, 1994, p. 157) and the constitutive equations of Zarraga et al. (J. Rheol. vol. 44, 2000, p. 185) is three-fold. First, the steady-state particle concentration distribution is no longer independent of particle size; rather, it depends on the aspect ratio B/a. Secondly, the direction of the secondary flow is such that particles are swept out of regions of high streamsurface curvature, e.g. particle concentrations in corners reach a minimum rather than the local maximum predicted in the absence of such flows. Finally, the second normal stress differences lead to instabilities even in such simple geometries as plane-Poiseuille flow.

Fully developed viscous and viscoelastic flows in curved pipes

Some h-p finite element computations have been carried out to obtain solutions for fully developed laminar flows in curved pipes with curvature ratios from 0.001 to 0.5. An Oldroyd-3-constant model is used to represent the viscoelastic fluid, which includes the upper-convected Maxwell (UCM) model and the Oldroyd-B model as special cases. With this model we can examine separately the effects of the fluid inertia, and the first and second normal-stress differences. From analysis of the global torque and force balances, three criteria are proposed for this problem to estimate the errors in the computations. Moreover, the finite element solutions are accurately confirmed by the perturbation solutions of Robertson & Muller (1996) in the cases of small Reynolds/Deborah numbers.Our numerical solutions and an order-of-magnitude analysis of the governing equations elucidate the mechanism of the secondary flow in the absence of second normal-stress difference. For Newtonian flow, the pressure gradient near the wall region is the driving force for the secondary flow; for creeping viscoelastic flow, the combination of large axial normal stress with streamline curvature, the so-called hoop stress near the wall, promotes a secondary flow in the same direction as the inertial secondary flow, despite the adverse pressure gradient there; in the case of inertial viscoelastic flow, both the larger axial normal stress and the smaller inertia near the wall promote the secondary flow.For both Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids the secondary volumetric fluxes per unit of work consumption and per unit of axial volumetric flux first increase then decrease as the Reynolds/Deborah number increases; this behaviour should be of interest in engineering applications.Typical negative values of second normal-stress difference can drastically suppress the secondary flow and in the case of small curvature ratios, make the flow approximate the corresponding Poiseuille flow in a straight pipe. The viscoelasticity of Oldroyd-B fluid causes drag enhancement compared to Newtonian flow. Adding a typical negative second normal-stress difference produces large drag reductions for a small curvature ratio δ = 0.01; however, for a large curvature ratio δ = 0.2, although the secondary flows are also drastically attenuated by the second normal-stress difference, the flow resistance remains considerably higher than in Newtonian flow.It was observed that for the UCM and Oldroyd-B models, the limiting Deborah numbers met in our steady solution calculations obey the same scaling criterion as proposed by McKinley et al. (1996) for elastic instabilities; we present an intriguing problem on the relation between the Newton iteration for steady solutions and the linear stability analyses.