The Translational Motion of Particles in a Viscoelastic Liquid

Citation

Tiefenbruck, Grant Fred (1980) The Translational Motion of Particles in a Viscoelastic Liquid. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/65jz-qx04. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-10302006-092427

Abstract

The translational motion of two different particles at low Reynolds number in a viscoelastic liquid is studied. The first study is an experimental investigation of the motion of a slender rod near a vertical wall. When the rod is not too near the wall, its motion is found to be in qualitative agreement with theoretical solutions for the motion of a rod in an unbounded second-order fluid. When the rod is nearer to the wall, its motion is shown to correspond qualitatively to a simple superposition of the motion in an unbounded second-order fluid and the motion in a Newtonian fluid near a vertical wall. The second study is a numerical solution of the equations governing the motion of a solid sphere and a spherical bubble in a viscoelastic fluid of infinite extent. The computed solutions are compared with analytic solutions obtained by asymptotic methods. It is found that many quantities are described quite well by the asymptotic theory considerably beyond the expected range of validity. Many features of the flow can be described by the model fluid behavior in shear and extensional flows.

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