The present thesis considers the phenomenon of flow-rate enhancement of polymer solutions in a pipe due to pulsating pressure gradients. It presents an historical review of the problem. The unexplained experimental dependence of enhancement on pulsation frequency reported by Barnes et al is examined, as are later theoretical attempts to reproduce their results. We find that the results can be reproduced only by omitting the important inertial term. The Modified Moment Method is applied to the problem. The results confirm the predictions of other models. The enhancement is of second order in the pulsation amplitude, exhibits a maximum when the pressure gradient is varied, and declines with increasing pulsation frequency. An expansion in powers of the pulsation amplitude gives a satisfactory approximation. Less power is consumed at the same rate of flow if the pressure gradient is constant and not pulsated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.61228 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Hausner, Alejo |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001287870, proquestno: AAIMM74933, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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