Honors Theses
Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Physics and Astronomy
First Advisor
Joseph Gladden
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The rate at which fluid streams condense into droplets and separate is, in general, not linear with respect to time. Numerous Newtonian fluids have been studied and modeled, and the general form of such droplet pinches is that the radius of the narrowest portion of the stream collapses to a singularity as a function of time prior to pinch raised to a power <1. This experiment examines the case of a non-Newtonian fluid composed of various concentrations of CTAB and NaSal, to determine if the time scaling of droplet pinch varies with the concentration of the fluid and if the fluid’s elasticity affects this collapse. To investigate this, a high speed camera with a macro lens operating at 15kfps (15,000 frames per second) was positioned in front of a clear tube, over which a pipette of the solution was suspended. The fluid was then slowly released to form droplets, and the recorded images were analyzed using a computer program written by Dr. Joseph Gladden. The results show that as concentration of the micellar fluid increases, the exponent of the time scaling decreases. This shows that wormlike micellar fluids do not follow scaling trends of Newtonian fluids, and further theoretical work is needed.
Recommended Citation
Thurber, Andrew Jonathan, "Droplet Pinch Off Dynamics in Viscoelastic Fluid" (2010). Honors Theses. 2439.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2439
Accessibility Status
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