NON-

NEWTONIAN

FLUIDS

BAWAH ABDUL-RASHID 3645009 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

LECTURER: ZSUZSANNA MOMADE

1

NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS. Our intuitive understanding of how fluids behave and flow is built primarily from observations and experiences with Newtonian fluids. However, non-Newtonian fluids display a rich variety of behavior that is often in dramatic contrast to these expectations. For example, an intuitive feel for the slipperiness of fluids can be gained from rubbing them between the fingers. Furthermore, the slipperiness of water, experienced in this way, is expected to be the same as the slipperiness of automobile tires on a wet road. However, the slipperiness (viscosity) of many non-Newtonian fluids changes a great deal depending on how fast they move or the forces applied to them. A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid whose flow properties are not described by a single constant value of viscosity. Many polymer solutions and molten polymers are non-Newtonian fluids, as are many commonly found substances such as ketchup, starch suspensions, paint, blood and shampoo. In a Newtonian fluid, the relation between the shear stress and the strain rate is linear (and if one were to plot this relationship, it would pass through the origin), the constant of proportionality being the coefficient of viscosity. In a non-Newtonian fluid, the relation between the shear stress and the strain rate is nonlinear, and can even be time-dependent. Therefore a constant coefficient of viscosity cannot be defined. Non-Newtonian fluids are fluids that depart from the classic linear Newtonian relation between stress and shear rate. In a strict sense, a fluid is any state of matter that is not a solid, and a solid is a state of matter that has a unique stress-free state. A conceptually simpler definition is that a fluid is capable of attaining the shape of its container and retaining that shape for all time in the absence of external forces. Therefore, fluids encompass a wide variety of states of matter including gases and liquids as well as many more esoteric states (for example, plasmas, liquid crystals, and foams). A non-Newtonian fluid also displays counterintuitive behavior when it is extruded from an opening. A Newtonian fluid tapers to a smaller cross section as it leaves the opening, but the cross section for a non-Newtonian fluid first increases before it eventually tapers. This phenomenon is called die swell. Newtonian fluids are not that common. Non-Newtonian fluids are more common in practical applications. Newtonian fluids are difficult to find because of their highly specific conditions. Not all fluids are Newtonian, more often than not, fluids are non-Newtonian. Realistically, the fluids that a person encounters on a daily basis are nonhomogenous, therefore their viscosity may differ widely---including water! Tap water is not 100% H20; rather it is H2O plus any filtrates and minerals that may not have been removed in the municipal filtering process. As a result the viscosity may differ and as a result, its behavior may differ. Though this may not produce a considerable difference, it is enough to cause a variation in experimental results.

Intuitive expectations for how the surface of a fluid will deform when the fluid is stirred (with the fluid bunching up at the wall of the container) are also in marked contrast to the behavior of non-Newtonian fluids. When a cylindrical rod is rotated inside a container of a Newtonian fluid, centrifugal forces cause the fluid to be higher at the wall. However, for non-Newtonian fluids, the normal stress differences cause the fluid to climb the rod; this is called the Weissenberg effect. Intuitive understanding about the motion of material when the flow of a fluid is suddenly stopped, for example, by turning off a water tap, is also notably at odds with the behavior of nonNewtonian fluids.

Weissenberg effect. When a Newtonian fluid is siphoned and the fluid level goes below the entrance to the siphon tube, the siphoning action stops. For many non-Newtonian fluids, however, the siphoning action continues as the fluid climbs from the surface and continues to enter the tube. This phenomenon is called the tubeless siphon. Although the non-Newtonian behavior of many fluids has been recognized for a long time, the science of rheology is, in many respects, still in its infancy, and new phenomena are constantly being discovered and new theories proposed. Advancements in computational techniques are making possible much more detailed analyses of complex flows and more sophisticated simulations of the structural and molecular behavior that gives rise to non-Newtonian behavior. Engineers, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians are actively pursuing research in rheology, particularly as more technologically important materials are found to display non-Newtonian behavior. Although the concept of viscosity is commonly used to characterize a material, it can be inadequate to describe the mechanical behavior of a substance, particularly non-Newtonian fluids. They are best studied through several other rheological properties which relate the relations between the stress and strain rate tensors under many different flow conditions, such as oscillatory shear, or extensional flow which are measured using different devices or rheometers. The properties are better studied using tensor-valued constitutive equations, which are common in the field of

An inexpensive, non-toxic example of a non-Newtonian fluid is a suspension of starch (e.g. corn flour) in water, sometimes called "oobleck" or "ooze" (2 parts corn starch to 1 part water). Uncooked imitation custard, being a suspension of primarily corn flour, has the same properties. The name "oobleck" is derived from the children's book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. A substance known as "glurch"a mixture of a borax solution and white glue, and optionally salt is also commonly used to demonstrate non-Newtonian fluids. Another example of this is chilled caramel ice cream topping. The sudden application of force for example by stabbing the surface with a finger, or rapidly inverting the container holding it leads to the fluid behaving like a solid rather than a liquid. This is the "shear thickening" property of this non-Newtonian fluid. More gentle treatment, such as slowly inserting a spoon, will leave it in its liquid state. Trying to jerk the spoon back out again, however, will trigger the return of the temporary solid state. A person moving quickly and applying sufficient force with their feet can literally walk across such a liquid. Silly Putty, is a silicone polymer based suspension which will flow, bounce, or break depending on strain rate. Ketchup behaves like a solid until even a slight force is applied to it. Once a force is applied, it acts like a liquid rather than a solid. Hitting the glass Heinz ketchup bottle on the bottom does not work, but a slight tap to the 57 imprint on the neck does, it is because hitting the bottle on the bottom only causes the ketchup at the very bottom to act like a liquid. The ketchup closer to the neck still acts like a solid blocking the ketchup from flowing out of the bottle. Hitting the bottle on the neck causes the ketchup at the neck of the bottle to act like a liquid and, thus, flow out of the bottle. A shear thinning non-Newtonian fluid behaves in the opposite way. In this type, the fluid becomes thinner, rather than thicker, when stress is applied. Also called pseudoplastic, examples of this type of non-Newtonian fluid include ketchup, toothpaste, and paint. The effect doesn't usually last for long in either type, continuing only as long as the stress is applied. Shear thickening fluids are also used in all wheel drive systems utilizing a viscous coupling unit for power transmission. A familiar example of the opposite, a shear thinning fluid, or pseudoplastic fluid, is paint: one wants the paint to flow readily off the brush when it is being applied to the surface being painted, but not to drip excessively. There are fluids which have a linear shear stress/shear strain relationship which require a finite yield stress before they begin to flow (the plot of shear stress against shear strain does not pass through the origin). These fluids are called Bingham plastics. Several examples are clay suspensions, drilling mud, toothpaste, mayonnaise, chocolate, and mustard. The classic case is ketchup which will not come out of the bottle until you stress it by shaking. There are also fluids whose strain rate is a function of time. Fluids that require a gradually increasing shear stress to maintain a constant strain rate are referred to as rheopectic. An opposite case of this is a fluid

that thins out with time and requires a decreasing stress to maintain a constant strain rate.

A plot of shear stress against shear rate of several fluids.

REFERENCES
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. http://www.answers.com/topic/non-newtonian-fluid http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-non-newtonian-fluid.htm http://web.mit.edu/soulages/www/shere/SHERE.html http://www.sciencedirect.com/science? http://web.mit.edu/nnf/research/phenomena/natural.html