Spontaneous imbibition of quasi-linear viscoelastic fluids
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Abstract
Spontaneous imbibition phenomena are commonly observed in capillaries and porous media. The extraction of energy resources, lubrication in the machinery industry, and therapeutic applications in life sciences often involve the imbibition of complex viscoelastic non-Newtonian fluids. Although the imbibition of Newtonian fluids or simple linear Maxwell viscoelastic fluids have been well studied, investigations on the imbibition of quasi-linear or nonlinear viscoelastic fluids are still rare. This paper focuses on the imbibition mechanism of quasilinear viscoelastic fluids. Primarily, the theoretical relationship between the imbibition height and time for quasi-linear fluid in a single capillary tube is derived, by incorporating the elastic stress into the classical Lucas-Washburn imbibition theory for Newtonian fluids. Then, glass capillary imbibition experiments are performed to validate the theoretical predictions, showing good agreements. Moreover, the impacts of key viscoelastic features on the imbibition of fluids are investigated, including the viscosity ratio and the relaxation time. The results show that under the capillary dominated conditions, the imbibition rate increases with the viscosity ratio, and this trend is more pronounced at larger relaxation time. In addition, the study finds a critical Deborah number , under which the viscoelastic effect is negligible. Conversely, when the viscoelasticity is strong, the imbibition height and velocity of fluids decrease with increasing relaxation time in a nonlinear manner. The study provides important theoretical support and guidance for engineering problems involving capillary action of viscoelastic fluids, advancing the understanding of the imbibition mechanisms of non-Newtonian fluids.
Document Type: Original article
Cited as: Sun, S., Wang, G., Zhu, S., Dong, R., Fu, Q., Xie, C. Spontaneous imbibition of quasi-linear viscoelastic fluids. Capillarity, 2025, 17(2): 68-76. https://doi.org/10.46690/capi.2025.11.03
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