Flow of Non-Newtonian Fluid in Narrow Channels
11th April 2018, Wednesday, 04:30‐05:00 pm (25+5 mins), ChE Seminar hall
Flow of non-Newtonian fluids is important in various technological applications such as shear thickening fluid impregnated protecting devices, enhanced oil recovery, flow of blood through arteries, pulp-paper industry, paint, grease, liquid soap etc. Scientists have taken keen interest in flow of shear thinning fluid for the last few decades due to its wide application in industries. On the hand, the shear thickening fluid (STF) have not been studied extensively. The hardening effect of STF at high shear rate is utilised in the body armour application. The understanding of the present system through simulation involve different length scales namely macro scale(the order of mm for bullet and fabric), mesoscale (few nano-meters for size of a molecule used as medium) and microscale(size of a molecule used as medium). Different length scales demands different techniques to understand the system. In this work we are aiming to do macro scale simulation using Fluent to understand the flow characteristics of the STF in narrow channels.
There are typically four regimes of variation of viscosity of STF with shear rate. This has been modelled as a few layers of immiscible fluids undergoing stratified flow. Each fluid has a characteristic viscosity variation with shear rate. We have started with two immisible flow then we moved to three phase stratified flow. This stratification of layers helps us comparing the results with analytical solutions. The energy dissipation in terms of the pressure drop has also been compared for various cases.