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This press release is available in German.
The unusual behavior of complex fluids is part of our daily life: cake dough climbs up the stirring bar, ketchup becomes liquid when you shake it. Also technology uses such phenomena: if we add a small amount of long-chained polymer molecules, a pipeline can transport more oil. The polymers reduce the flow resistance. But up to now the origin of these effects was unclear. The engineers had to rely on estimates and lengthy trials.
A team of physicists led by Professor Andreas Bausch, Chair of Cellular Biophysics at TUM now developed a numerical model of such liquids. Experimental heart of the work are a fine flow channel and a micro-camera. Like the camera looking down at the pit lane of Formula 1 races, the scientists monitored the movements of individual polymer molecules in the flow.
From their observations they conducted a theoretical model for the motion of rigid molecules different from the current. In addition, they were able also to provide for colleagues suspected of movement patterns experimental confirmation.
Challenging for theory and experiment
"Due to the incredibly large number of degrees of freedom the study and description of the motion of polymers is a big challenge," says Markus Harasim, one of the two main authors. Even a simple system of water and polymer shows the effects of complex fluids. In order to make the long molecules visible, the physicists marked the polymers with a fluorescent dye. This allowed them to study the movements under various conditions.
To their surprise the mathematical modeling showed, that even the simple model of a stiff rod was suitable as a starting point. Then the researchers refined the model by taking into account the thermal motion, the flexibility of the molecule and the higher flow resistance of a curved polym
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| Contact: Dr. Andreas Battenberg battenberg@zv.tum.de 49-892-891-0510 Technische Universitaet Muenchen Source:Eurekalert |