Superposition of low-amplitude shear vibrations on steady shear flow of an elastic fluid

Abstract

The previously proposed theory of viscoelastic behavior of polymer fluids is compared with experiments on the superposition of low-amplitude shear vibrations on a steady flow. It is shown that the theory agrees satisfactorily with experiments on a single polymer solution. The superposition of a steady shear flow and low-amplitude vibrations can be used to investigate some nonlinear effects characteristic of elastic fluids by relatively simple methods. The literature devoted to this question is fairly extensive; we cite only investigations in which the main results have been obtained [1–3]. The most common experimental scheme is one-dimensional (“parallel” superposition), although there is also a two-dimensional scheme of orthogonal superposition of shear vibrations on steady flows. Since almost all the effects in the second scheme are qualitatively similar to the first [3], but are not so clearly manifested, we give the theoretical and experimental results relating to the parallel scheme in this paper.