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A dilute magnetic emulsion under the combined action of a uniform external magnetic field and a small amplitude oscillatory shear is studied using numerical simulations. We consider a three-dimensional domain with a single ferrofluid droplet suspended in a non-magnetizable Newtonian fluid. We present results of droplet shape and orientation, viscoelastic functions and bulk emulsion magnetization as functions of the shear oscillation frequency, magnetic field intensity and orientation. We also investigate how the magnetic field induces mechanical anisotropy by producing internal torques in oscillatory conditions. We found that, when the magnetic field is parallel to the shear plane, the droplet shape is mostly independent of the shear oscillation frequency. Regarding the viscometric functions, we show how the external magnetic field modifies the storage and loss moduli, especially for a field aligned to the main velocity gradient. The bulk emulsion magnetization is studied in the same fashion as the viscoelastic functions of the oscillatory shear. We show that the in-phase component of the magnetization with respect to the shear rate reaches a saturation magnetization, at the high frequencies limit, dependent on the magnetic field intensity and orientation. On the other hand, we found a non-zero out-of-phase response, which indicates a finite emulsion magnetization relaxation time. Our results indicate that the magnetization relaxation is closely related to the mechanical relaxation for dilute magnetic emulsions under oscillatory shear.
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Ferrofluid droplets in planar extensional flows: Droplet shape and magnetization reveal novel rheological signatures of ferrofluid emulsions
We present a three-dimensional computational study of the impact of external magnetic fields on the dynamics of superparamagnetic ferrofluid droplets and rheology of dilute ferrofluid emulsions in planar extensional flows. Specifically, we show how the intensity and direction of uniform magnetic fields affect the planar extensional rheology of ferrofluid emulsions by changing the shape and magnetization of the constituent ferrofluid droplets in suspension. We find that the two traditional extensional viscosities associated with the normal stresses of the bulk emulsion in extension either remain constant or increase with the field intensity; the only exception occurs when the field direction is perpendicular to the extension plane, where increasing the field intensity keeps the planar extensional viscosity constant and modestly decreases the second extensional viscosity. We also find that the droplet tilts in the flow when the external field is not aligned with one of the flow main directions, which changes the recirculation pattern and flow topology inside the droplet. At the microscopic level, the droplet experiences a magnetic torque because of a small misalignment between its magnetization and the external field direction. At the macroscopic level, the bulk emulsion experiences a field-induced internal torque that leads to a nonsymmetric stress tensor with unexpected shear components in extension. To account for this unconventional stress-strain response, we introduce new extensional material functions such as shear and rotational viscosity coefficients that unveil novel rheological signatures of ferrofluid emulsions in planar extensional flows. This study offers new insights into applications based on the field-assisted manipulation of ferrofluid droplets and sheds light on the potential of ferrofluid emulsions as a model system for chiral fluids with internal rotational degrees of freedom that can be activated and controlled by coupling static magnetic fields with hydrodynamic flows.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2019745
- PAR ID:
- 10512293
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Physical Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Fluids
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 2469-990X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.8.063601
