Flow Characteristics of Microglass Fiber Suspension in Polymeric Fluids in Spherical Gaps

An experimental study is carried out to investigate the effects of microglass fiber suspensions in the non-Newtonian fluids in a gap between an inner rotating sphere and an outer whole stationary sphere. In the experiments, the microglass fibers with different aspect ratios are mixed with a macromolecule polymeric fluid to obtain different suspension fluids. For comparison, a Newtonian fluid and the non-Newtonian polymeric fluid are also studied. The stationary torques of the inner sphere that the test fluids acted on are measured under conditions of various concentric spherical gaps and rotational Reynolds numbers. It is found that the polymeric fluid could be governed by the Couette flow at a gap ratio of less than 0.42 and the Reynolds number of less than 100, while the fiber-suspended polymeric fluids could expand the Couette flow region more than the Reynolds number of 100 at the same gap ratios.