Nonrecirculating flow of a yield stress fluid around a circular cylinder in a poiseuille flow

Although yield stress fluids are very present today in everyday life and in industry, their flow behavior is still poorly understood and the databases are incomplete at this time. The present experimental and numerical study focuses on laminar nonrecirculating flows of an elastoviscoplastic model fluid in a rectangular duct. An original experimental set‐up has been developed. The Particle Image Velocimetry method is used for analyzing the kinematical fields. Results provided concern the morphology of the flow and the evolution of the velocity field around a cylindrical obstacle. Information is provided on the size of the rigid zones where the fluid behaves as a solid. The experimental data are compared with numerical results involving a regularized Herschel–Bulkley viscoplastic model. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 4554–4563, 2016     

Drag of a cylinder moving near a wall in a yield stress fluid

The drag of a cylindrical obstacle moving at a constant velocity in a yield stress fluid close to a wall is studied experimentally and numerically. The wall influence has been explored for gap values between the cylinder of diameter D and the wall ranging from 0.01D to 100D, which corresponds, respectively, to hydrodynamic lubrication and to unconfined domain conditions. A model yield stress fluid (Carbopol gel) is used in the experiments. The viscous and plastic drag coefficients have been calculated and measured as depending on the Oldroyd number, in conditions where the yield stress effects are more important than those of viscosity and the inertia negligible. We have performed experimental and numerical validations in the Newtonian case and provided more specifically comparisons of our measured data on yield stress materials with those resulting from viscoplastic flow simulations. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 4118–4130, 2018     

Estimating time and temperature dependent yield stress of cement paste using oscillatory rheology and genetic algorithms

A controlled shear stress–shear rate rheometer was used to determine the viscoelastic behavior of cement paste incorporating various superplasticizers and subjected to prolonged mixing at high temperature. At a low applied shear stress range, the oscillatory shear strain/stress curve of cement paste was characteristic of a linear elastic solid; while the higher stress range was characteristic of a viscous liquid exhibiting a linear strain increase with increasing applied shear stress. The transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior occurred over a very narrow stress increment. This transition stress corresponded to the yield stress parameter estimated from conventional flow curves using the Bingham model. The yield stress from oscillatory shear stress tests was estimated using the intersection between the viscous part of the oscillatory shear strain/stress curve and the oscillatory shear stress axis. In this study, equations describing the variation of shear strain versus shear stress beyond the solid–fluid transition for cement pastes incorporating various superplasticizers at different ambient temperatures and mixing times were developed using genetic algorithms (GA). The yield stress of cement pastes was subsequently predicted using the developed equations by calculating the stress corresponding to zero strain. A sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of the mixing time, ambient temperature, and superplasticizer dosage on the calculated yield stress. It is shown that the computed yield stress values compare well with corresponding experimental data measured using oscillatory rheology.