Volume 13, Issue 6

Novel approach to rheological modelling of a fly ash-water mixture is proposed. The model is first tested against the available experimental data for a corn starch-water, a glass beads-water and a fly ash-water mixture and then used taking the advantage of available CFD code for a calculation of major and minor losses. Numerical results for Quadratic model are compared with results for Power law.

The effects of composition and resulting morphology on the rheology of thermoplastics filled with different talc platelets were studied in the 0-22% range of volume fraction, Φ. The sufficiently filled polymer composites exhibit a rheological behavior which significantly differs from the pure polymers used in this work, a linear low density polyethylene, a low density polyethylene and a polyamide 12. The changes in the rheological behavior are influenced by the size, the concentration and the surface treatment of plate-like talc particles. They also depend on the chemical nature and viscous and elastic characteristics of the polymer matrix. In particular, the effect of platelet orientation on the viscoelastic properties of reinforced composites was pointed out. For sufficiently filled systems, a low frequency response indicative of a pseudo solid-like behavior is obtained only during the first frequency sweep. In fact, the low frequency storage modulus, G’, is constant. With repeated frequency sweeps, more platelets were aligned in the flow direction, thus the low frequency storage modulus gradually decreases and becomes dependent on frequency, ω. The low frequency complex viscosity η * also progressively decreases with repeated frequency sweeps. In addition, for these systems, the low shear viscosity η build up in an unbounded manner because of the existence of particle-particle interactions. There are stresses below which there is no flow indicating the existence of yield values. Steady shear elastic properties are also studied, especially in the case of systems showing an apparent yield stress.

Red blood cell aggregation (RBCa) is a sensitive inflammation marker. RBCa determination from erythrocyte sedimentation rate, ESR , is used since long, but is unspecific unless corrected for hematocrit, Ht . Whole blood viscosity measurement at low shear rate is also sensitive to RBCa but is cumbersome to apply. To investigate whether electrical blood impedance, being sensitive to spatial red cell distribution, can be a good alternative to determine RBCa in low shear conditions. Blood was collected from 7 healthy volunteers. From each 16 different samples were prepared with 4 different Ht ’s and with 4 different fibrinogen concentrations. Viscosity was measured at low shear rate (4.04 s -1 ) with a rotational viscometer at 37˚C. Electrical blood impedance was measured during similar shear conditions and temperature in a specially designed cuvette. ESR was determined according to Westergren. A logarithmic increase of viscosity as well as of capacitance, Cm , is seen when fibrinogen rises and an exponential increase when Ht rises. However, ESR shows a logarithmic decrease with increasing Ht and an exponential increase when fibrinogen rises. The viscosity could be accurately described using an exponential model. Under similar low shear conditions and temperature in-vitro, either whole blood viscosity or electrical blood capacitance reflect red blood cell aggregation due to fibrinogen and Ht variation in a similar way.