Paper Number
IR8                         My Program 

Session
Interfacial Rheology, Surfactants, Foams and Emulsions

Title
A rigorous microinertia model for dilute emulsions under flow

Presentation Date and Time
October 20, 2025 (Monday) 1:50

Track / Room
Track 5 / O’Keeffe + Milagro

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Beris, Antony N. (Univeristy of Delaware, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
2. Edwards, Brian J. (University of Tennessee, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Antony N. Beris¹ and Brian J. Edwards^2
1Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Univeristy of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716; ²Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996

Speaker / Presenter 
Edwards, Brian J.

Keywords
theoretical methods; emulsions; non-Newtonian fluids; suspensions

Text of Abstract
As new materials are developed involving mesoscopic structures of larger sizes and interest grows in the modeling of inertial microfluidic flows, it is of interest to examine the proper form of macroscopic models that go beyond the local creeping hypothesis at the microscopic level. We call here those models, where the macroscopic characteristic length scale approaches closer to the microscopic one and where particle momenta become important, microinertial models. The use of the Single Generator Bracket Formalism (SGBF) of nonequilibrium dynamics, is particularly advantageous in properly representing the mathematical structure of microinertial models as demonstrated for the description of microinertial effects in nematic liquid crystals, an area where the first principles microinertia models were developed in the past [1]. The flow of dilute emulsions is an area where independent theoretical evidence of microinertial effects, based on both microscopic simulations [2] as well as theoretical asymptotic analysis results [3], is available. Emanating from a new evaluation of the mathematical structure of the governing equations of materials flow in the presence of microinertia, we present here an improved model to that discussed in the past [4] for the flow of dilute emulsions when microstructural inertia can be important. As in that work [4], all model parameters are independently fit to theoretical asymptotic analysis results [3]. Predictions with the new model are compared both against the older model [4] as well as against previous microscopic simulations [2] results at Reynolds numbers well beyond the creeping flow regime where inertial effects are expected to play a substantial role in the nonequilibrium dynamics of the system. References: [1] A.N. Beris and B.J. Edwards, Thermodynamics of Flowing Systems, Oxford University Press, 1994. [2] X. Li and K. Sarkar, J. Rheol. 49, 1377 (2005). [3] R.V. Raja, G. Subramanian, and D.L. Koch, J. Fluid Mech. 646, 255 (2010). [4] P.M. Mwasame, N.J. Wagner, and