A rheological study of aqueous separan solutions

Abstract

AbstractThe concentration dependence of the rheological response of aqueous Separan solutions was measured. The shear and primary normal stress response in steady shearing flow, and the relaxation of shear stress following cessation of steady shear flow, were measured with four different polymer solution concentrations. Two different nonlinear constitutive equations, Bird‐Carreau and Meister, were used to analyse the data. The Bird‐Carreau model fit the steady shear data very well and the parameters obtained from steady shear data allow reasonable estimates of the stress relaxation of these systems. The Meister model provided a fit of the transient stress relaxation data and could be used to estimate the steady shear response. No quantitative molecular theory was developed in this work. However, the nature of the concentration dependence of the Bird‐Carreau parameters suggests that as the polymer concentration of aqueous Separan solutions decreases from 2.0 to 0.05 weight percent the solutions should be modeled less by an entangled network theory and more as slightly overlapping hydrodynamic units. The concentration where this behavior seems to be changing appears to be about 0.25 percent by weight of polymer.