Paper Number
DP25                         My Program 

Session
Dense Particulate Systems

Title
Rheology of bi-disperse dense fiber suspensions

Presentation Date and Time
October 15, 2024 (Tuesday) 4:25

Track / Room
Track 3 / Waterloo 5

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Khan, Monsurul (Purdue University, School of Mechanical Engineering)
  2. Corder, Ria D. (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
  3. Erk, Kendra A. (Purdue University, School of Materials Engineering)
  4. Ardekani, Arezoo M. (Purdue University, School of Mechanical Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Monsurul Khan1, Ria D. Corder2, Kendra A. Erk3 and Arezoo M. Ardekani1
1School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907; 2Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996; 3School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906

Speaker / Presenter 
Corder, Ria D.

Keywords
experimental methods; computational methods; dense systems; suspensions

Text of Abstract
While significant progress has been made in the modeling and simulation of uniform fiber suspensions, no existing model has been validated for industrially-relevant concentrated suspensions containing fibers of multiple aspect ratios. In the present work, we investigate bi-disperse suspensions with two fiber populations in varying aspect ratios in a steady shear flow using direct numerical simulations. Moreover, we measure the suspension viscosity by creating a controlled length bidispersity for nylon fibers suspended in a Newtonian fluid. The results showed good agreement between the experimentally measured and numerically predicted viscosity for bi-disperse suspensions. The ratio between the aspect ratio of large to small fibers (size ratio) and the volume fraction of large fibers (composition) in bi-disperse systems strongly affected the rheological behavior of the suspension. The increment of relative viscosity associated with size ratio and composition can be explained by the decrease in the maximum flowable limit or jamming volume fraction. Moreover, the relative viscosity of bi-disperse suspensions collapses, when plotted against the reduced volume fraction, demonstrating the controlling influence of the jamming fraction in bi-disperse fiber suspensions.