Despite growing interest in the focusing and manipulation of particles in non-Newtonian fluids in confined flows, the combined effect of viscoelastic and shear-thinning effects on particle dynamics is not well understood. Herein, we report the dynamics of rigid microparticles in confined flows of strongly shear-thinning viscoelastic (STVE) fluids at very low Reynolds numbers. Our experiments with different STVE fluids reveal five different regimes: original streamline, bimodal, center migration, defocusing, and wall migration (WM), depending upon the fluid properties and flow rates. It is found that the occurrence of the different regimes depends on the STVE parameter and average strain rate (). We find that the dynamics of particles in the different regimes is underpinned by the synergy between viscoelastic lift force () and shear-thinning lift force (). Numerical simulation results of strain rate and viscosity profiles at different and enable estimation of the forces and explaining the dynamics observed. We expect that our study will find relevance in applications involving positioning and manipulation of particles in confined flows of STVE fluids.
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Dynamics of rigid particles in a confined flow of viscoelastic and strongly shear-thinning fluid at very small Reynolds numbers
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Research Article|
May 05 2021
Dynamics of rigid particles in a confined flow of viscoelastic and strongly shear-thinning fluid at very small Reynolds numbers
S. Hazra;
S. Hazra
1
Fluid Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
, Chennai 600036, India
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A. Nath;
A. Nath
1
Fluid Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
, Chennai 600036, India
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S. K. Mitra;
S. K. Mitra
2
Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo
, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
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A. K. Sen
A. K. Sen
a)
1
Fluid Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
, Chennai 600036, India
3
Micro Nano Bio-Fluidics Group, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
, Chennai 600036, Tamilnadu, India
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: ashis@iitm.ac.in
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a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: ashis@iitm.ac.in
Physics of Fluids 33, 052001 (2021)
Article history
Received:
February 06 2021
Accepted:
April 19 2021
Citation
S. Hazra, A. Nath, S. K. Mitra, A. K. Sen; Dynamics of rigid particles in a confined flow of viscoelastic and strongly shear-thinning fluid at very small Reynolds numbers. Physics of Fluids 1 May 2021; 33 (5): 052001. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0046729
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