Motion of a Viscoelastic Micellar Fluid around a Cylinder: Flow and Fracture

Joseph R. Gladden and Andrew Belmonte

Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 224501 – Published 29 May 2007

Abstract

We present an experimental study of the motion of a viscoelastic micellar fluid around a moving cylinder, which ranges from fluidlike flow to solidlike tearing and fracture, depending on the cylinder radius and velocity. The observation of crack propagation driven by the cylinder indicates an extremely low tear strength, approximately equal to the steady state surface tension of the fluid. At the highest speeds a driven crack is observed in front of the cylinder, propagating with a fluctuating speed equal on average to the cylinder speed, here as low as 5% of the elastic wave speed.

Received 18 May 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.224501

Authors & Affiliations

Joseph R. Gladden^* and Andrew Belmonte^†

The W. G. Pritchard Laboratories, Department of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

^*Present address: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, USA.
^†Also at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

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Vol. 98, Iss. 22 — 1 June 2007

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