A domain perturbation study of steady flow in a cone-and-plate rheometer of non-ideal geometry

Abstract

The method of domain perturbation developed by Joseph is used to calculate velocity and stress profiles in a slightly misaligned cone-and-plate rheometer where the cone is spinning and the plate is stationary. Results for a Newtonian fluid, a Criminale-Ericksen-Filbey fluid, an upper-convected Maxwell fluid, and a White-Metzner fluid are presented and compared with earlier results in which the cone is stationary and the plate is spinning (Dudgeon and Wedgewood, 1993). Streamlines calculated for the Newtonian fluid show a very small recirculation region near the stationary plate. Velocity and stress contours are symmetric around the plane of largest gap width. For the elastic fluids studied, streamlines are asymmetric. The fluid response lags where the fluid is dominated by memory effects. Much larger recirculation regions are calculated for fluids dominated by shear thinning. These recirculation regions contain a large fraction of the fluid in the apparatus and have the effect of changing the shape of the flow domain for the remaining fluid that rotates around the cone's axis. Elasticity also has a pronounced effect on the stress profile, indicating that the accuracy of the cone and plate may be compromised even for small mis-alignments.