An experimental investigation into the dimension-sensitive viscosity of polymer containing lubricant oils in microchannels

In many lubrication processes, lubricating oils containing polymer additives are subject to high shear rate through very small clearance channels. While the influence of shear rate on the performance of these lubricants has been well examined, very little is known about the effects of channel size. In this study a specially designed microchannel viscometer has been used to experimentally characterize the influence of channel height on the effective viscosity of oil lubricants with two different polymer additives (a radial hydrogenated styrene–isoprene copolymer and an A–B–A block ethylene–propylene copolymer) commonly used as viscosity index (VI) modifiers. The mass concentration of the polymer solutions ranged from 0.5% to 1.5% in this study. The viscosity was measured over a range of shear rates in steel slit microchannels with heights of 4.5, 7 and 11.5 lm, respectively. For all solutions a significant viscosity dependence on channel size was observed. In the higher shear rate range the smaller channels exhibited a lower viscosity while in the lower shear rate range all solutions exhibited a significant increase in viscosity. Generally, this observed increase in viscosity is more dramatic in the smaller channels. Possible causes of these behaviors were discussed in this paper. 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.