Taylor-Couette stability analysis for a Doi-Edwards fluid

Abstract

The stability of Taylor-Couette flow of entangled polymeric solutions to small axisymmetric stationary disturbances is analyzed using the Doi-Edwards constitutive equation in the small gap limit. A previous analysis of Karlsson, Sokolov, and Tanner for the general K-BKZ equation, of which the Doi-Edwards equation is a special case, reduces the problem to one of numerically evaluating seven viscoelastic functions of the shear rate\(\dot \gamma\) in the gap. Of these seven, only three — two of which are related to the second normal stress difference, and one of them to shear thinning — significantly affect the flow stability. The negative second normal stress difference of the Doi-Edwards fluid stabilizes the flow at low values of the Weissenberg number λ1\(\dot \gamma\), while shear thinning produces strong destabilization at moderate Weissenberg number. Hereλ1 is the longest relaxation time. Non-monotonic effects of viscoelasticity on Taylor-Couette stability analogous to those predicted here have been observed in experiments of Giesekus. The extreme shear thinning of the Doi-Edwards fluid is also predicted to produce a large growth in the height of the Taylor cells, a phenomenon that has been seen experimentally by Beavers and Joseph.