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Microfluidic extensional rheometry using a hyperbolic contraction geometry

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Abstract

Microfluidic devices are ideally suited for the study of complex fluids undergoing large deformation rates in the absence of inertial complications. In particular, a microfluidic contraction geometry can be utilized to characterize the material response of complex fluids in an extensionally-dominated flow, but the mixed nature of the flow kinematics makes quantitative measurements of material functions such as the true extensional viscosity challenging. In this paper, we introduce the ‘extensional viscometer-rheometer-on-a-chip’ (EVROC), which is a hyperbolically-shaped contraction-expansion geometry fabricated using microfluidic technology for characterizing the importance of viscoelastic effects in an extensionally-dominated flow at large extension rates (\(\lambda \dot \varepsilon _a \gg 1\), where \(\lambda \) is the characteristic relaxation time, or for many industrial processes \(\dot \varepsilon _a \gg 1\) s\(^{-1}\)). We combine measurements of the flow kinematics, the mechanical pressure drop across the contraction and spatially-resolved flow-induced birefringence to study a number of model rheological fluids, as well as several representative liquid consumer products, in order to assess the utility of EVROC as an extensional viscosity indexer.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Seong-Gi Baek and Dr. Ying-Chih Wang of Rheosense, Inc. for material support in the form of the EVROC chips and associated hardware. We also are grateful to Dr. Mónica Oliveira, Dr. Trushant Majmudar and Dr. Vivek Sharma for helpful discussions. TJO acknowledges the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for funding. SJH acknowledges funding from NASA Microgravity Fluid Sciences (grant NNX09AV99G) and the European Commission under Marie Curie action FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IIF (grant 298220).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Thomas J. Ober, Simon J. Haward, Christopher J. Pipe, Johannes Soulages & Gareth H. McKinley

  2. Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Centro de Estudos de Fenómenos de Transporte, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

    Simon J. Haward

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  1. Thomas J. Ober
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  2. Simon J. Haward
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  4. Johannes Soulages
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  5. Gareth H. McKinley
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Correspondence to Gareth H. McKinley.

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Ober, T.J., Haward, S.J., Pipe, C.J. et al. Microfluidic extensional rheometry using a hyperbolic contraction geometry. Rheol Acta 52, 529–546 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-013-0701-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-013-0701-y

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