Experimental Characterization of Meso-Micro Fractals from Nanoparticle Seeded Resin in Lifting Plate Hele-Shaw Cell

Abstract

Various processes are developed to fabricate meso and micro size fractal structures for wide variety of engineering applications. Various types of fluid flows are studied and are deployed to develop meso and micro fractal structures. Lift Plate Hele-Shaw fluid flow also termed as Saffman-Taylor instability is one of the fluid phenomenon’s which can be easily used to fabricate such structures. In this process, fractals are formed by capturing the fluid droplet between thin gaps of two flat parallel plates and moving the upper plate in controlled manner. The formation of the fractal depends on process parameters; viz velocity of plate, fluid property and gap between the plates. This paper presents the exhaustive characterization of fluid composed of photopolymer seeded with the nanopowder in lifting plate Hele-Shaw cell. The prepared resin is mixture of monomer Hexanediol Diacrylate (HDDA) and photoinitiator Benzoyl Ethyl Ether (BEE) seeded with ceramic nanopowder. The fractal growth is observed from the prepared resin under lifting plate Hele Shaw cell through designed of experiments. The parameters; fluid separation velocity and gap between the plates are varied through developed system and effect of viscosity is observed by varying the loading of the ceramic nanopowder. The exhaustive characterization of the process has presented the effect of parameters and its interactions on the formation of the fractal. Further the fractal growth is presented in the dimensionless manner for its generalization. The experimental characterization has given a generalised methodology for the formation of controlled fractals or to mimic various meso and micro fractals available in the nature.