Explore the vast range of titles available.

Surfactant-based viscoelastic (SBVE) fluids have recently gained interest from many oil industry researchers due to their polymer-like viscoelastic behaviour and ability to mitigate problems of polymeric fluids by replacing them during various operations. This study investigates an alternative SBVE fluid system for hydraulic fracturing with comparable rheological characteristics to conventional polymeric guar gum fluid. In this study, low and high surfactant concentration SBVE fluid and nanofluid systems were synthesized, optimized, and compared. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and counterion inorganic sodium nitrate salt, with and without 1 wt% ZnO nano-dispersion additives, were used; these are entangled wormlike micellar solutions of cationic surfactant. The fluids were divided into the categories of type 1, type 2, type 3, and type 4, and were optimized by comparing the rheological characteristics of different concentration fluids in each category at 25 °C. The authors have reported recently that ZnO NPs can improve the rheological characteristics of fluids with a low surfactant concentration of 0.1 M cetyltrimethylammonium bromide by proposing fluids and nanofluids of type 1 and type 2. In addition, conventional polymeric guar gum gel fluid is prepared in this study and analyzed for its rheological characteristics. The rheology of all SBVE fluids and the guar gum fluid was analyzed using a rotational rheometer at varying shear rate conditions from 0.1 to 500 s−1 under 25 °C, 35 °C, 45 °C, 55 °C, 65 °C, and 75 °C temperature conditions. The comparative analysis section compares the rheology of the optimal SBVE fluids and nanofluids in each category to the rheology of polymeric guar gum fluid for the entire range of shear rates and temperature conditions. The type 3 optimum fluid with high surfactant concentration of 0.2 M cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and 1.2 M sodium nitrate was the best of all the optimum fluids and nanofluids. This fluid shows comparative rheology to guar gum fluid even at elevated shear rate and temperature conditions. The comparison of average viscosity values under a different group of shear rate conditions suggests that the overall optimum SBVE fluid prepared in this study is a potential nonpolymeric viscoelastic fluid candidate for hydraulic fracturing operation that could replace polymeric guar gum fluids.

Surfactant-based viscoelastic (SBVE) fluids are innovative nonpolymeric non-newtonian fluid compositions that have recently gained much attention from the oil industry. SBVE can replace traditional polymeric fracturing fluid composition by mitigating problems arising during and after hydraulic fracturing operations are performed. In this study, SBVE fluid systems which are entangled with worm-like micellar solutions of cationic surfactant: cetrimonium bromide or CTAB and counterion inorganic sodium nitrate salt are synthesized. The salt reagent concentration is optimized by comparing the rheological characteristics of different concentration fluids at 25 °C. The study aims to mitigate the primary issue concerning these SBVE fluids: significant drop in viscosity at high temperature and high shear rate (HTHS) conditions. Hence, the authors synthesized a modified viscoelastic fluid system using ZnO nanoparticle (NPs) additives with a hypothesis of getting fluids with improved rheology. The rheology of optimum fluids of both categories: with (0.6 M NaNO3 concentration fluid) and without (0.8 M NaNO3 concentration fluid) ZnO NPs additives were compared for a range of shear rates from 1 to 500 Sec−1 at different temperatures from 25 °C to 75 °C to visualize modifications in viscosity values after the addition of NPs additives. The rheology in terms of viscosity was higher for the fluid with 1% dispersed ZnO NPs additives at all temperatures for the entire range of shear rate values. Additionally, rheological correlation function models were derived for the synthesized fluids using statistical analysis methods. Subsequently, Herschel–Bulkley models were developed for optimum fluids depending on rheological correlation models. In the last section of the study, the pressure-drop estimation method is described using given group equations for laminar flow in a pipe depending on Herschel–Bulkley-model parameters have been identified for optimum fluids are consistency, flow index and yield stress values.

A colloidal particle is a prominent example of a stochastic system, and, if suspended in a simple viscous liquid, very closely resembles the case of an ideal random walker. A variety of new phenomena have been observed when such colloid is suspended in a viscoelastic fluid instead, for example pronounced nonlinear responses when the viscoelastic bath is driven out of equilibrium. Here, using a micron-sized particle in a micellar solution, we investigate in detail, how these nonlinear bath properties leave their fingerprints already in equilibrium measurements, for the cases where the particle is unconfined or trapped in a harmonic potential. We find that the coefficients in an effective linear (generalized) Langevin equation show intriguing inter-dependencies, which can be shown to arise only in nonlinear baths: for example, the friction memory can depend on the external potential that acts only on the colloidal particle (as recently noted in simulations of molecular tracers in water in (2017 Phys. Rev. X 7 041065)), it can depend on the mass of the colloid, or, in an overdamped setting, on its bare diffusivity. These inter-dependencies, caused by so-called fluctuation renormalizations, are seen in an exact small time expansion of the friction memory based on microscopic starting points. Using linear response theory, they can be interpreted in terms of microrheological modes of force-controlled or velocity-controlled driving. The mentioned nonlinear markers are observed in our experiments, which are astonishingly well reproduced by a stochastic Prandtl–Tomlinson model mimicking the nonlinear viscoelastic bath. The pronounced nonlinearities seen in our experiments together with the good understanding in a simple theoretical model make this system a promising candidate for exploration of colloidal motion in nonlinear stochastic environments.

Enormous advances in physics of complex fluids/soft matter over last decades have rapidly transformed traditional industrial sectors in foods, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, paints, lubricants, ceramics, polymers, liquid crystals, high performance fibers, oil exploration and production into a digital era of formulation design and precision control over processing conditions from molecular viewpoint, and fertilizing a new industrial revolution. Development of high performance viscoelastic fluid solvers is of great significance for large scale digital manufacturing. In the present work, a portable and extensible scientific computing (PETSc) toolbox has been successfully integrated into the popular OpenFOAM CFD toolbox for carrying out large scale parallel computing of Turbulent Drag Reduction ( TDR ) and Elastic Turbulence ( ET ) in the isotropic turbulence flow. Its scalability has been evaluated and compared with the scalability of the OpenFOAM based viscoelastic fluid solvers. The results show that there are significant improvements.

To elucidate the process whereby sperm arrive at an egg in the female reproductive organs, it is essential to investigate how rheological properties of the fluid around mammalian spermatozoa affect their motility. We examined the motility and flagellar waveform of bovine sperm swimming in a fluid with similar rheological properties as mammalian cervical mucus. The results indicated that the surrounding rheological properties largely affected the flagellar waveform of mammalian spermatozoa; in particular, shear-thinning viscoelastic fluid increased the progressive motility of the sperm. To investigate the influence of flagellar waveform on sperm motility in more detail, the waveform was expressed as a function and the progressive thrust of the sperm was calculated based on the empirical resistive force theory. The results of this study showed that the progressive thrust increased with the curvature of the flagellar tip. Moreover, we calculated the thrust efficiency of motile sperm. Results showed that the thrust efficiency in shear-thinning viscoelastic fluids was larger than that in Newtonian fluids, regardless of viscosity. This suggests that motile sperm in cervical mucus move efficiently by means of a motion mechanism that is suited to their surrounding environment.

This work investigates particle focusing under Dean-flow-coupled elasto-inertial effects in symmetric serpentine microchannels. A small amount of polymers were added to the sample solution to tune the fluid elasticity, and allow particles to migrate laterally and reach their equilibriums at the centerline of a symmetric serpentine channel under the synthesis effect of elastic, inertial and Dean-flow forces. First, the effects of the flow rates on particle focusing in viscoelastic fluid in serpentine channels were investigated. Then, comparisons with particle focusing in the Newtonian fluid in the serpentine channel and in the viscoelastic fluid in the straight channel were conducted. The elastic effect and the serpentine channel structure could accelerate the particle focusing as well as reduce the channel length. This focusing technique has the potential as a pre-ordering unit in flow cytometry for cell counting, sorting, and analysis. Moreover, focusing behaviour of Jurkat cells in the viscoelastic fluid in this serpentine channel was studied. Finally, the cell viability in the culture medium containing a dissolved polymer and after processing through the serpentine channel was tested. The polymer within this viscoelastic fluid has a negligible effect on cell viability.

The separation of particles such as cells and bacteria in viscoelastic fluids has significant applications in biomedical fields. At present, one of the main challenges that limit the application of microfluidic technology is to separate particles in the viscoelastic fluids with different rheological properties. For instance, most existing microfluidic devices can only work in the fluid with a specific rheological property, resulting in the requirement of time-consuming design, manufacturing, testing, and optimization of different devices to separate particles in the fluids with different rheological properties. In this work, a novel hybrid three-stage microfluidic device that was made up of a micropore structure and two gradually contracted microchannels was designed to achieve efficient continuous separation of particles in the viscoelastic fluid over a wide range of rheological properties (0.07 < El < 340.41). Different separation strategies including first focusing, then initial separation, and then precise separation (FISPS) and initial separation and then precise separation (ISPS) were found. The separation strategy ISPS occurred at El < 0.14 while the separation strategy FISPS occurred at El > 8.43. In addition, the transformation of the separation mechanism from ISPS to FISPS was found under different flow conditions in the fluid with the transitional rheological properties (0.21 < El < 1.10). The effect of the flow rate and the rheological property of the fluid on microparticle separation were systematically studied by the experiment. With simple structure, easy operation, high separation efficiency, the present microfluidic device would have great potentials in the biomedical and clinical applications, such as the separation of cells for different patients.

Cilia-driven laminar flow of an incompressible viscoelastic fluid in a divergent channel has been conducted numerically using the BVP4C technique. The non-Newtonian Jeffrey rheological model is utilized to characterize the fluid. The flow equations are formulated in a curvilinear coordinate system, and the porosity effects are simulated with a body force term in the Navier–Stokes equation. The flow equations are transformed into a wave frame from a fixed frame of reference using a linear mathematical relationship. A biological approximation of creeping phenomena and the long-wavelength assumption is used in the flow analysis. The flow analysis is carried out by using a complex (wavy) propulsion of cilia beating. The two-dimensional flow is controlled by physical parameters—Darcy’s number, curvature parameter, viscoelastic parameter, phase difference, cilia length, and divergent parameter. They also examined the ciliated pumping and bolus trapping in their flow analysis. The boundary layer phenomena in the velocity profile are noticed under more significant porosity and time relaxation effects. The bolus circulations are reduced for a larger porosity medium and larger numeric values of the time relaxation parameter.

This article develops a modal expansion (in terms of functions exponentially decaying with time) of the force acting on a micrometric particle and stemming from fluid inertial effects (usually referred to as the Basset force) deriving from the application of the time-dependent Stokes equation to model fluid–particle interactions. One of the main results is that viscoelastic effects induce the regularization of the inertial memory kernels at t=0, eliminating the 1/t-singularity characterizing Newtonian fluids. The physical origin of this regularization stems from the finite propagation velocity of the internal shear stresses characterizing viscoelastic constitutive equations. The analytical expression for the fluid inertial kernel is derived for a Maxwell fluid, and a general method is proposed to obtain accurate approximations of it for generic complex viscoelastic fluids, characterized by a spectrum of relaxation times.

In this paper, we consider the Galerkin finite element method (FEM) for the Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic fluid flow model with the lowest equal-order pairs. In order to overcome the restriction of the so-called inf-sup conditions, a pressure projection method based on the differences of two local Gauss integrations is introduced. Under some suitable assumptions on the initial data and forcing function, we firstly present some stability and convergence results of numerical solutions in spatial discrete scheme. By constructing the dual linearized Kelvin-Voigt model, stability and optimal error estimates of numerical solutions in various norms are established. Secondly, a fully discrete stabilized FEM is introduced, the backward Euler scheme is adopted to treat the time derivative terms, the implicit scheme is used to deal with the linear terms and semi-implicit scheme is applied to treat the nonlinear term, unconditional stability and convergence results are also presented. Finally, some numerical examples are presented to verify the developed theoretical analysis and show the performances of the considered numerical schemes.