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Revealing Actual Viscoelastic Relaxation Times in Capillary Breakup
Nan Hu1, Jonghyun Hwang1, Tachin Ruangkriengsin2
1Princeton University, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA.
Abstract:
We use experiments and theory to elucidate the size effect in capillary breakup rheometry, where prestretching in the viscocapillary stage causes the apparent relaxation time to be consistently smaller than the actual value. We propose a method accounting for both the experimental size and the finite extensibility of polymers to extract the actual relaxation time. A phase diagram characterizes the expected measurement variability and delineates scaling law conditions. The results refine capillary breakup rheometry for viscoelastic fluids and advance the understanding of breakup dynamics across scales.
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