The jetting behavior of viscoelastic Boger fluids during centrifugal spinning

Abstract

We present an experimental visualization study of centrifugal spinning, which is a novel method of producing nanofibers. The investigation was conducted using Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids to study the effect of viscoelasticity, driving force, and the flow rate on the initial thinning behavior, jet contour shapes, and radii. Boger fluids based on Newtonian polybutene and viscoelastic polyisobutylene were utilized as test fluids in the current study. Our results reveal that increasing the viscoelasticity leads to a faster initial thinning of the polymer jet. However, the effect is strongly coupled with the rotation speed, and due to a faster increase in extensional viscosity for highly viscoelastic fluids, the thinning slows down with the increase in the angular velocity. Initial thinning is shown to be faster for the lower flow rates. Viscoelasticity and centrifugal force have a significant influence on the jet contour radii. The maximum radius will decrease for more viscoelastic fluids, and with the increase in angular velocity due to the development of the elastic hoop stress. The comparison of experiments with the discretized element modeling with the FENE-P model confirms the model predictive potential for the thinning behavior. Finally, the centrifugal spinning experiments are compared to electrospinning in order to observe a qualitative similarity.