Secondary-flow-aided single-train elastic-inertial focusing in low elasticity viscoelastic fluids

Elastic-inertial focusing has attracted increasing interest in recent years due to the three-dimensional (3D) single-train focusing ability it offers. However, multi-train focusing, instead of single-train focusing, was observed in viscoelastic fluids with low elasticity as a result of the competition between inertia effect and viscoelasticity effect. To address this issue, we employed the secondary flow to facilitate single-train elastic-inertial focusing in low elasticity viscoelastic fluids. A three-section contraction-expansion channel was designed to induce the secondary flow to pinch the multiplex focusing trains into a single one exactly at the channel centerline. After demonstrating the focusing process and mechanism in our device, we systematically explored and discussed the effects of particle diameter, operational flow rate, polymer concentration, and channel dimension on particle focusing performances. Our device enables single-train focusing of particles in viscoelastic fluids with low elasticity, and offers advantages of planar single-layer structure, and sheathless, external-field free operation.     

Investigation of viscoelastic focusing of particles and cells in a zigzag microchannel

Microfluidic particle focusing has been a vital prerequisite step in sample preparation for downstream particle separation, counting, detection, or analysis, and has attracted broad applications in biomedical and chemical areas. Besides all the active and passive focusing methods in Newtonian fluids, particle focusing in viscoelastic fluids has been attracting increasing interest because of its advantages induced by intrinsic fluid property. However, to achieve a well-defined focusing position, there is a need to extend channel lengths when focusing micrometer-sized or sub-microsized particles, which would result in the size increase of the microfluidic devices. This work investigated the sheathless viscoelastic focusing of particles and cells in a zigzag microfluidic channel. Benefit from the zigzag structure of the channel, the channel length and the footprint of the device can be reduced without sacrificing the focusing performance. In this work, the viscoelastic focusing, including the focusing of 10 μm polystyrene particles, 5 μm polystyrene particles, 5 μm magnetic particles, white blood cells (WBCs), red blood cells (RBCs), and cancer cells, were all demonstrated. Moreover, magnetophoretic separation of magnetic and nonmagnetic particles after viscoelastic pre-focusing was shown. This focusing technique has the potential to be used in a range of biomedical applications.     

A new high frequency dynamic mechanical analysis system: An approach to direct high frequency testing of tire tread rubber

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) systems are measurement devices for obtaining master curves and complex modules of viscoelastic materials, such as rubbers. The conventional DMAs measurement systems in market have several limitations, which restrict their ability for operating at high frequencies. Thus, Williams, Landel and Ferry (WLF) relation is used to produce master curves and predict the material properties at high frequencies. In conventional DMAs, experiments are done in a range of temperatures, and then a master curve is made for a chosen reference temperature by shifting the measurements data to high frequencies. Therefore, the obtained results, which are not based on direct measurements, can be inaccurate. In order to overcome this problem a new simple shear high-frequency DMA (HFDMA) system is designed and built to directly measure the dynamic mechanical properties of viscoelastic material at high frequencies and the strain levels sufficient for tire manufacturers. The new HFDMA can be used to test any viscoelastic materials which have glass transmission temperature (Tg) lower than room temperature (about 23 °C) such as the Styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR). The SBR is the base material for tire tread. The designing process of this new HFDMA is presented in this paper. The rubber specimen shape is chosen by taking into account the shear elastic wave effect, bending, buckling effect and heat generation in the specimen. The repeatability test is accomplished to ensure that the results obtained from the new HFDMA are repeatable and the repeatability uncertainty is about 0.04%. The new HFDMA is validated by comparing to the direct test results of conventional DMA at 100 Hz. The direct high frequency (5 kHz) complex shear modulus and damping factor are compared with the master curve of the conventional DMA developed by the use of WLF relation for SBR. This comparison revealed that the complex shear modulus and damping factor of the SBR obtained from the HFDMA at 5 kHz and 0.05% strain amplitude are about 7% and 6.5% higher than those obtained from the conventional DMA, respectively.     

A note on the spheroidal modes vibration of an elastic sphere in linear viscoelastic fluid

Vibration characteristics of elastic nanostructures embedded in fluid medium have been used for biological and mechanical sensing, and also to investigate materials mechanical properties. An analytical approach based on the exact theory has been developed in this paper, to establish a new accurate and simple generalized frequency equation to predict spheroidal vibration of an elastic nanosphere, in a compressible viscoelastic fluid using linear Maxwell fluid model. To demonstrate the accuracy of the present approach, a comparison is made with the published theoretical results in the literature in some particular cases, which shows a very good agreement. Thus, the obtained frequency equation can be very useful to interpret the experimental measurements of vibrational dynamics of nanospheres and can serve as benchmark solution in design of liquid sensors.     

Shape stability of a gas bubble in a soft solid

Predicting the onset of non-spherical oscillations of bubbles in soft matter is a fundamental cavitation problem with implications to sonoprocessing, polymeric materials synthesis, and biomedical ultrasound applications. The shape stability of a bubble in a Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic medium with nonlinear elasticity, the simplest constitutive model for soft solids, is analytically investigated and compared to experiments. Using perturbation methods, we develop a model reducing the equations of motion to two sets of evolution equations: a Rayleigh-Plesset-type equation for the mean (volume-equivalent) bubble radius and an equation for the non-spherical mode amplitudes. Parametric instability is predicted by examining the natural frequency and the Mathieu equation for the non-spherical modes, which are obtained from our model. Our theoretical results show good agreement with published experiments of the shape oscillations of a bubble in a gelatin gel. We further examine the impact of viscoelasticity on the time evolution of non-spherical mode amplitudes. In particular, we find that viscosity increases the damping rate, thus suppressing the shape instability, while shear modulus increases the natural frequency, which changes the unstable mode. We also explain the contributions of rotational and irrotational fields to the viscoelastic stresses in the surroundings and at the bubble surface, as these contributions affect the damping rate and the unstable mode. Our analysis on the role of viscoelasticity is potentially useful to measure viscoelastic properties of soft materials by experimentally observing the shape oscillations of a bubble.     

Viscoelastic materials with a double porosity structure

This paper in concerned with the linear theory of materials with memory that possess a double porosity structure. First, the formulation of the initial-boundary-value problem is presented. Then, a uniqueness result is established. The semigroup theory of linear operators is used to prove existence and continuous dependence of solutions. A minimum principle for the dynamical theory is also derived.     

一类具有粘性项的拟线性抛物型方程组*

研究了一类具有非线性源项和粘性项的拟线性抛物型方程组的初边值问题．通过构造稳定集, 证明了此问题整体解的存在性, 并建立了解的长时间行为．同时在放松函数的适当假设条件下, 得到了初始能量非负时解的爆破性质及解的生命区间估计．     

Wave propagation in fluid-conveying viscoelastic single-walled carbon nanotubes with surface and nonlocal effects

In this paper, the transverse wave propagation in fluid-conveying viscoelastic single-walled carbon nanotubes is investigated based on nonlocal elasticity theory with consideration of surface effect. The governing equation is formulated utilizing nonlocal Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and Kelvin-Voigt model. Explicit wave dispersion relation is developed and wave phase velocities and frequencies are obtained. The effect of the fluid flow velocity, structural damping, surface effect, small scale effects and tube diameter on the wave propagation properties are discussed with different wave numbers. The wave frequency increases with the increase of fluid flow velocity, but decreases with the increases of tube diameter and wave number. The effect of surface elasticity and residual surface tension is more significant for small wave number and tube diameter. For larger values of wave number and nonlocal parameters, the real part of frequency ratio raises.     

Waterhammer modelling of viscoelastic pipes with a time-dependent Poisson's ratio

Poisson's ratio in viscoelastic materials is a function of time. However, recently developed waterhammer models of viscoelastic pipes consider it constant. This simplifying assumption avoids cumbersome calculations of double convolution integrals which appear if Poisson's ratio is time-dependent. The present research develops a mathematical model taking the time dependency of Poisson's ratio into account for linear viscoelastic pipes. Poisson's ratio is written in terms of relaxation function and bulk modulus which is assumed to be constant. The relaxation function is obtained from creep function given as the viscoelastic property data of pipe material. The results obtained from the present waterhammer model are compared with the experimental data for two different flow rates. The comparison reveals that with the application of the time-dependent Poisson's ratio and unsteady friction, the viscoelastic data of mechanical tests can directly be used for waterhammer analysis with less need for the calibration of the flow configuration. It was also shown that the creep curve calibrated based on the present model is closer to the actual creep curve than that calibrated based on previous models.     

重载线接触脂润滑弹流问题的多重网格数值解

利用多重网格方法，求解重载线接触脂润滑弹流问题，给出了数值解。计算结果表明，重载工况下弹流接触区压力分布近于Ｈｅｒｔｚ型，润滑脂的屈服剪应力τ＿ｙ对油膜厚度的影响不明显。