Rheological properties direct flow rate

The two main rheological properties of a suspension are the yield stress and the viscosity. Yield stress determines when the system becomes a fluid state and when is in a solid state, whereas viscosity determines the ability to flow. In this section, we start with the viscosity measurement. Although one can extract the yield stress from the complete viscosity-shear rate curve, it is helpful to measure the yield stress directly as well. The dynamic and transient measurements are also important for concentrated suspensions. However, because these two types of measurements can be blended into the measurements of the two main rheological properties with some modifications to the measuring instrument, we refer to their measurements only briefly when it is relevant to the discussion. 

Based on this approach, the apparent viscosity of the polymer solution, uapp corrected if the apparent viscosity of the corresponding hypothetical Newtonian fluid flowing in the same capillary with the same total pressure drop is known. There are two procedures to determine the apparent viscosity of such a Newtonian fluid. The direct experimental procedure is to measure the apparent viscosity of the appropriate Newtonian fluid in the high-shear capillary viscometer. This experimental calibration technique was employed by Graham and co-workers (20). Although this experimental technique is direct, in practice it is difficult to perform. It is difficult to find a Newtonian fluid with the identical rheological properties as exhibited by the polymer solution at low-shear rates. 

The relation between the viscosity and elasticity of the secretions is one of the determining factors in transport velocity. If the gel phase is in practice the only one really transported, the sol phase creates a low-resistance milieu where the cilia can beat, an environment that is essential for transport in the direction of the upper airways. One of the most important rheological properties of mucus is viscosity. Viscosity is resistance to flow and represents the capacity of a material to absorb energy while it moves. Elasticity is the capacity to store the energy used to move or deform material. The ratio between viscosity and elasticity appears to be an important determinant of the transport rate (6,10). Mucus transport by ciliary beating is influenced by the viscoelastic and surface properties of the mucus. Theoretical models suggest that a decrease in the ratio of viscosity to elasticity can result in an increase in mucociliary transport (13). 

There are various direct measurements of micellar solutions giving access to the dynamics rate constants - mainly based on disturbance of the equilibrium state by imposing various types of perturbations, such as stop flow, ultrasound, temperature and pressure jump [14,15[. This aspect is also not further elaborated here we focus instead on the impact of micellar kinetics on interfacial properties, to demonstrate that tensiometry and dilational rheology are suitable methods to probe the impact of micellar dynamics. The first work on this subject was published by Lucassen already in 1975 [16[ and he showed that the presence of micelles in the bulk have a measurable impact on the adsorption kinetics, and hence on the dilational elasticity, when measured by a longitudinal wave damping technique. Subsequent work demonstrated the effect of micellar dynamics on non-equilibrium interfacial properties [17-29]. The physical idea of the impact of micellar dynamics on the dynamic properties of interfacial layers can be easily understood from the scheme given in Figure 13.1. 

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