Wake measurements for flow around a sphere in a viscoelastic fluid

Abstract

The flow field around a sphere falling at its terminal velocity in a column of viscoelastic non-shear-thinning fluid is experimentally measured with digital particle image velocimetry. The working fluid is an extensively characterized, monodisperse, polystyrene based Boger fluid. The sphere radius relative to the radius of the column of fluid is small (a/rc=0.083). The Weissenberg number (λUt/a) ranges from 0.5 to 14 over which the sphere experiences a drag increase up to 8 times that of the Newtonian flow. The flow field is investigated in detail for We 0.5 to 2.5. A length and width scale is defined for the wake. Over this range of We the wake is found to grow linearly with We and become self-similar in a transverse cross-section of the axial component of the velocity. Streamlines along with extension and rotation rates along those streamlines are also determined.