The majority of complex fluids used in oil-field applications are polymeric solutions exhibiting shear-thinning (pseudoplastic) behavior in solution. We study the flow of power-law fluids in porous media using network modeling. We use realistic representations of porous media that capture the geometry and topology of sands and sandstones as input to our flow model. The bulk rheology (variation ...

This will be a discussion of the non-invasive determination of the viscosity of a non-Newtonian fluid in laminar pipe flow over the range of shear rates present in the pipe. The procedure used requires knowledge of the flow profile in and the pressure drop along a long straight run of pipe. The profile is determined by using a pulsed ultrasonic Doppler velocimeter. This approach is ideal for ma...

This study examines the rheological behavior of reconstituted spray-dried mucilage isolated from the cladodes of pitahaya (Hylocereus undatus), the effects of concentration and its relationship with physical properties were analyzed in reconstituted solutions. Drying process optimization was carried out through the surface response method, utilizing a factorial 2(3) design with three central po...

A hexagonal columnar crystal undergoes a shear-melting transition above a critical shear rate or stress. We combine the analysis of the shear-thinning regime below the melting with that of synchrotron x-ray scattering data under shear and propose the melting to be due to a proliferation of dislocations, whose density is determined by both techniques to vary as a power law of the shear rate with...

This work is devoted on the rheological behavior of ethylene glycol based nanofluids containing maghemtite nanoparticles. The size of these maghemite nanoparticles was measured using XRD and found to be about <50 nm. Major factors that influence on viscosity and rheological behavior, such as, temperature and particle mass concentration, were investigated over 25–80°C and 0.2 and 2% respectivel...

Simulations of the flow of concentrated aggregated colloidal systems, at the particulate level, are used to investigate the distribution of stresses in the shear-thinning regime. It is found that the distribution of shear stress carried by interparticle bonds decays approximately exponentially at large stresses, but with a double-exponential distribution for values of positive stress. The micro...

The rheology of solvent-filled polymer brushes under steady and oscillatory shear is studied by Brownian dynamics simulation. The flow field is solved self-consistently with the polymer dynamics. We find that under steady flow the brushes are shear thinning in both normal forces and shear viscosity. During oscillatory flow, extreme shear thickening occurs when the ratio of the Weissenberg numbe...

Lattice Boltzmann simulations are used to explore the behavior of liquid crystals subject to Poiseuille flow. In the nematic regime at low shear rates we find two possible steady state configurations of the director field. The selected state depends on both the shear rate and the history of the sample. For both director configurations there is clear evidence of shear-thinning, a decrease in the...