Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - 9:00 AM
347c

Flow Of Concentrated Suspensions In Bifurcations Measured By MRI

Chunguang Xi, Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, 500 W. 120th Street, Mail Code 4721, New York, NY 10027 and Nina C. Shapley, Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, 500 W. 120th Street, MC 4721, New York, NY 10027.

Concentrated suspensions flowing in complex geometries are often encountered in materials processing applications such as injection molding and extrusion. One example of a practical complex geometry is a branching, or bifurcation flow. Previous work on the behavior of dispersed particles in branching flows has generally emphasized the interesting finite-size case where the particle diameter is close to the branch width. Meanwhile, a high loading of small particles, where the suspension can be compared to a continuum material, and the resulting impact on the concentration and flow fields have not received as much attention. In our study, suspensions of neutrally buoyant, noncolloidal spheres in Newtonian liquids undergo steady, pressure-driven flow in a rectangular channel (4:1 aspect ratio) that divides into two branches at a T-junction. The two branches can be symmetric or asymmetric and can have equal or different sizes. Particle concentration and velocity profiles are obtained by nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMRI). We aim to determine the effect of the branching ratio and geometry on the observed concentration and flow fields, for particle volume fractions of 0.4-0.5 and low flow and particle Reynolds numbers. Recent results from branching flow experiments will be presented, with the emphasis put on dividing streamlines, concentration inhomogeneities, particle fluxes in the branches and particle migration across streamlines, along with comparisons between different bifurcation geometries.