arXiv subjects

William Kai Alexander Worby

Publications and source records attributed to William Kai Alexander Worby.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Apparent Breakdown of the Stress-Optic Rule in Rigid-Rod Suspensions: A Stress-Partitioning Interpretation

A fundamental problem in the field of anisotropic macromolecular materials concerns how the flow-induced orientational order connects microscopic structure to macroscopic rheological stress and optical anisotropy. This study considered cellulose nanocrystal suspensions as rigid-rod model systems for the purpose of isolating orientational effects from chain stretching. Simultaneous rheo-optical measurements of birefringence, orientation angle, and shear stress were combined with a Fokker-Planck orientation model and stress decomposition. Our results show that, at low values of the Peclet number, birefringence and total stress exhibit proportionality similar to the stress-optic rule. However, the concentration dependence indicates that this proportionality reflects stress partitioning rather than a unique material coefficient. With increasing flow strength, orientational saturation is accompanied by a reduced relative Brownian stress contribution and a corresponding change in the total stress-based relation. Referencing the optical response to an estimated Brownian stress contribution yields a substantially more unified response across concentrations and flow conditions, supporting a stress-partitioning interpretation of apparent stress-optic rule breakdown.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2026

Full-component reconstruction of three-dimensional fluid stress tensors

Forces govern how fluids deform biological tissues, regulate cardiovascular function, and determine the performance and failure of soft materials. Recent advances in flow birefringence, including the use of suspended anisotropic nanomaterials to optically encode stress in fluids, have made direct stress measurement experimentally accessible in projection. However, direct experimental access to all six components of the three-dimensional (3D) fluid stress tensor has remained unattainable because optical measurements provide only path-integrated observables. Recovering local 3D stresses from such data constitutes an intrinsically underdetermined tensor tomography problem, where two optical observables must determine six independent stress components. Here we introduce U-FlowPET, an unsupervised physics-informed framework that integrates photoelastic tomography with the governing equations of fluid mechanics to reconstruct the full 3D stress tensor without relying on constitutive assumptions, geometric symmetry, or labeled training data. Rather than learning from labeled reference stress fields, the method identifies physically admissible stress fields that satisfy momentum balance and continuity while remaining consistent with measured optical projections. We validate the approach using analytical, numerical, and experimental datasets. In axisymmetric pipe flow with an analytical solution, all six stress components are reconstructed with normalized mean absolute errors below 4%. Robust reconstruction is further demonstrated in curved-pipe flow without symmetry assumptions and in experimental pipe-flow data despite measurement noise. By enabling direct 3D stress-field reconstruction from optical data alone, U-FlowPET extends fluid analysis from observing motion to quantifying force and establishes a new framework for stress-based diagnostics in biological flows and functional materials.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2026

Flow birefringence measurement in a radial Hele-Shaw cell considering three-dimensional effects

Flow birefringence measurement is an emerging technique for visualizing stress fields in fluid flows. This study investigates flow birefringence in the steady radial Hele-Shaw flow. In the radial Hele-Shaw flow, stress is dominant along the gap direction, challenging the applicability of the conventional stress-optic law (SOL) with measurement from the gap direction. To overcome this problem, we used two types of flow birefringence measurement using radial Hele-Shaw cell and rheometer. We conduct flow birefringence measurements at various flow rates and compare the results with theoretical predictions. The observed phase retardation cannot be quantitatively explained using the conventional SOL, but is successfully described using the second-order SOL, which accounts for stress along the optical direction. The stress-optic coefficient in the second-order SOL was obtained by rheo-optical measurements. This study demonstrates that the combination of the second-order SOL and rheo-optical measurements is essential for an accurate interpretation of flow birefringence in Hele-Shaw flow, providing a noninvasive approach for stress field analysis in high-aspect-ratio geometries.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Extending flow birefringence analysis to combined extensional-shear flows via Jeffery-Hamel flow measurements

This study investigates the relationship between phase retardation and strain rates in combined extensional-shear flows using the Jeffery-Hamel flow formalism, which yields an analytical velocity solution. Flow birefringence was measured in a 1.0 wt$\%$ cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) suspension using a high-speed polarization camera. The velocity field was validated via particle image velocimetry (PIV), which showed good agreement with the analytical solution. In regions dominated by either shear or extensional components, the birefringence behavior was consistent with prior theoretical and experimental findings. In the combined extensional-shear regions of the Jeffery-Hamel flow, the birefringence magnitude followed the root-sum-square (RSS) of the shear- and extension-induced contributions. This observation aligns with the principal stress formulation derived from Mohr's circle, in which the principal stress is expressed as the RSS of extensional and shear stresses. This finding provides a basis for extending stress-birefringence analysis to flows with coexisting deformation modes.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Examination of flow birefringence induced by the shear components along the optical axis using a parallel-plate-type rheometer

In this study, the concept of rheo-optics is applied that explores the flow birefringence caused by stress components along the optical axis of the camera since it is often overlooked in the traditional theories of photoelastic flow measurement. A novel aspect of this research is that it involved conducting polarization measurements on simple shear flows, specifically from a perspective in which a shear-velocity gradient exists along the camera's optical axis. A parallel-plate-type rheometer and a polarization camera are employed for these systematic measurements. The experimental findings for dilute aqueous cellulose nanocrystal suspensions demonstrates that the flow birefringence can be expressed as a power law based on the power of the second invariant of the deformation-rate tensor. This suggests that flow birefringence can be universally characterized by the coordinate-independent invariants and a pre-factor determined by the direction of polarization measurement. By adjusting the nonlinear term in the stress-optic law, its applicability could be expanded to include three-dimensional fluid stress fields in which the stress is distributed along the camera's optical axis.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2024

Flow birefringence of cellulose nanocrystal suspensions in three-dimensional flow fields: revisiting the stress-optic law

This study systematically investigates the flow birefringence of cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) suspensions. The aim is to clarify the importance of the stress component along the camera's optical axis in the stress-optic law (SOL), which describes the relationship between birefringence, the retardation of transmitted polarized light, and the stress field. More than 100 datasets pertaining to the retardation of CNC suspensions (concentrations of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 wt\%) in a laminar flow field within a rectangular channel (aspect ratios of 0.1, 1, and 3) are systematically obtained. The measured retardation data are compared with the predictions given by the conventional SOL excluding the stress component along the camera's optical axis and by the SOL including these components as second-order terms (2nd-order SOL). The results show that the 2nd-order SOL gives a significantly better agreement with the measurements. Based on the 2nd-order SOL, the retardation at the center of the channel, where the effect of the stress component along the camera's optical axis is most pronounced, is predicted to be proportional to the square of the flow rate, which agrees with the experimental data. The results confirm the importance of considering the stress component along the camera's optical axis in the flow birefringence of CNC suspensions at high flow rates, even for quasi-two-dimensional channel flow.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2023

Measurement of flow birefringence induced by the shear components along the optical axis using a parallel-plate-type rheometer

The present study investigated the flow birefringence induced by shear components along a camera's optical axis, which has been neglected in conventional theories of photoelastic measurements. Measurements were conducted for a wide range of shear rates from a direction perpendicular to the shear using a high-speed polarization camera and a parallel-plate-type rheometer. The measurement results obtained from a fluid with low viscoelasticity, specifically a dilute suspension of cellulose nanocrystals, showed that the birefringence increases monotonically as the stress components along the camera's optical axis increase. It was also found that the birefringence showed a power law with respect to the shear rate. This letter reports a key fact required for polarization measurements of shear rate (shear stress) in three-dimensional flows.

physics.flu-dyn↗