On a Study of Flow Past Non-Newtonian Fluid Bubbles

In the current work, we aim at finding an analytical solution to the problem of fluid flow past a pair of separated non-Newtonian fluid bubbles. These bubbles are assumed to be spherical and non-permeable with the non-Newtonian fluid, viz. the couple stress fluid filling their interior. Further, the bubbles are presumed to be static in the flow domain, where a Newtonian fluid streams past these bubbles with a constant velocity (U) along the negative x-direction. We developed a mathematical model in the bipolar coordinate system for the fluid flow outside the bubbles and the spherical coordinate system inside the bubbles to derive a separable solution for their respective governing equations. Furthermore, to evaluate the model's applicabilities on the industrial front, the data on some widely used industrial fluids are given as inputs to the model, such as density, the viscosity of air or water for the fluid flow model developed for the region outside the fluid bubbles and the data on Cyclopentane or DIDP (non-Newtonian) for that within the bubbles. Some interesting findings are: the pressure in the outer region of the bubbles is higher when filled with low viscous industrial fluid, Cyclopentane, than a high viscous fluid, DIDP. Furthermore, an increase in the viscosity of Cyclopentane did not alter the pressure distribution in the region outside the bubbles. However, there is a considerable effect on this pressure in the case of DIDP bubbles.

Controlling Interfacial Flow Instability via Micro Engineered Surfaces Towards Multiscale Channel Fabrication

Hierarchical branched structures exist in nature in diverse forms, functions and scales stretching from micro to very large sizes. Typically effective as heat and mass transfer networks, ordered hierarchal/ multiscale branched/ tree-like networks could be fabricated by controlling a fluid reshaping process in a device called ‘Multiport Hele-Shaw cell’. Control over the instability by employing micro-modified cell plates, containing ‘source-holes’ as ports, rearranges the fluid into ordered tree-like networks. Reshaping is an outcome of ‘Saffman-Taylor interface instability’ induced by the displacement of a high-viscous fluid by a relatively low-viscous one in the cell. A new configuration of ‘source-holes’, is proposed here to control the instability towards shaping of high-viscous fluid into ordered multiscale treelike layouts. The process is lithography-less method of shaping the fluid spontaneously into 3D layouts in a very short interval of time. Fabricated structures are UV-cured and cast into channel-networks in an elastomer PDMS.

Development of a Passive Damping Tool Holder for the Improvement of Surace Roughness in Turning Operation of Stainless Steel

One special type of passive damping setup has been used to investigate the surface responses with the variation of different process parameters. In this study, a special design capsule type tool holder has been used to investigate the process parameters effect in machining of stainless steel during turning operations under different cutting condition such as-RPM, feed, depth of cut. Inside the capsule high viscous fluid is used as damping materials and its effects has been investigated accordingly. The effect of damping during turning process is investigated by studying generated surface profile for both with and without damping system. It has been observed that surface roughness is better in the newly designed passive damping tool holder compared to normal cutting conditions.

Two-phase fluid flow in geometric packing

We investigate how a plug of obstacles inside a two-dimensional channel affects the drainage of high viscous fluid (oil) when the channel is invaded by a less viscous fluid (water). The plug consists of an Apollonian packing with, at most, 17 circles of different sizes, which is intended to model an inhomogeneous porous region. The work aims to quantify the amount of retained oil in the region where the flow is influenced by the packing. The investigation, carried out with the help of the computational fluid dynamics package ANSYS-FLUENT , is based on the integration of the complete set of equations of motion. The study considers the effect of both the injection speed and the number and size of obstacles, which directly affects the porosity of the system. The results indicate a complex dependence in the fraction of retained oil on the velocity and geometric parameters. The regions where the oil remains trapped is very sensitive to the number of circles and their size, which influence in different ways the porosity of the system. Nevertheless, at low values of Reynolds and capillary numbers Re <4 and n c ≃10 −5 , the overall expected result that the volume fraction of oil retained decreases with increasing porosity is recovered. A direct relationship between the injection speed and the fraction of oil is also obtained.