Steady state extensional rheology of a dilute suspension of spheres in a dilute polymer solution

Abstract

We investigate the steady-state extensional rheology of a dilute suspension of spherical particles in a dilute polymer solution. For a particle-free polymeric fluid, in addition to the solvent viscosity, the extensional viscosity due to the polymers, $\mu^\text{poly}$, contributes to the total non-dimensionalized extensional viscosity $1+\mu^\text{poly}$. When a small volume fraction, $\phi$, of spheres is added to a polymeric fluid, the stress is altered by the Einstein viscosity of 2.5$\phi$ and two additional stress contributions: the interaction stresslet and the particle-induced polymer stress (PIPS). The net interaction stress is positive at lower Deborah numbers (product of extension rate and polymer relaxation time), $De\lesssim0.5$, and negative at large $De$. Relative to undisturbed flow, the presence of spheres in uniaxial extensional flow creates larger and smaller local stretching regions. Below the coil-stretch transition ($De<0.5$), the polymers far from the particles are in a coiled state, and a wake of stretched polymers forms downstream of the particle as they are stretched by the large stretching regions around the particle. This leads to a positive interaction stresslet (surface) and the PIPS (stretched wake). Beyond the coil-stretch transition, polymers far from the particle are highly stretched, but they collapse closer to the coiled state as they arrive at the low-stretching regions near the particle surface. Therefore, a negative PIPS results from the regions of collapsed polymers. When $De\gtrsim0.6$, the changes in extensional viscosity from the interaction stresslet and the PIPS are $\phi\mu^\text{poly}$ and approximately -1.85$\phi\mu^\text{poly}$, respectively. At large $De$, the polymer extensional viscosity, $\mu^\text{poly}$, is large. Therefore, adding particles reduces the extensional viscosity of the suspension ($(2.5-0.85\mu^\text{poly})\phi<0$).