The effect of viscoelastic fluids on flows generated by spherical objects during sedimentation

This thesis describes and analyses sedimentation experiments of a bead in various concentrations of aqueous PEG. These experiments are intended to be first order approximations of free-swimming organisms sedimenting in viscoelastic fluids and serve as a precursor to further experiments involving free-swimming organisms swimming in viscoelastic fluids. The post-processed data from these experiments are presented as colour maps in graphs of Reynolds number versus Deborah number, revealing that the velocity and vorticities are more sensitive to changes in Reynolds number than in Deborah number. However, for the range of viscoelastic fluids experimented with, no quantitative trends were apparent. As such, further experiments will need to be conducted to gain information about the velocity and viscosity maps from a wider range of viscoelastic fluids. Further improvements to the current setup are also suggested and outlined where possible.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Hamzah, Latifah Binti

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anette E. Hosoi.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74516

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/74516