Design of model Boger fluids with systematically controlled viscoelastic properties

The subject of viscoelastic flow phenomena is crucial to many areas of engineering and the physical sciences. Although much of our understanding of viscoelastic flow features stems from carefully designed experiments, preparation of model viscoelastic fluids remains a challenge; for example, fabricating a series of fluids with different fluid shear moduli G0, but with an identical relaxation time τ, is nontrivial. In this work, we harness the nonideality of nearly constant-viscosity elastic fluids, commonly known as “Boger fluids,” made with polyisobutylene (PIB), to develop an experimental methodology that produces a set of fluids with desired viscoelastic properties, specifically, G0, τ, and the first normal stress difference coefficient ψ1. Through a linear algebraic relation between the rheological properties of interest (G0, τ, ψ1) and the fluid compositions in terms of polymer concentration c, molecular weight M, and solvent viscosity ηs, we developed a “design equation” that takes G0, τ, ψ1 as inputs and calculates values for c, M, ηs as outputs. Using this method, fabrication of dilute viscoelastic fluids whose rheological properties are a priori known can be achieved.