University of Twente Student Theses
Measurement of the velocity and viscosity of fluids in a micro channel with Optical Coherence Tomography
Wiegerinck, H.T.M (2017) Measurement of the velocity and viscosity of fluids in a micro channel with Optical Coherence Tomography.
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| Abstract: | The growth of bacterial biofilms in water treatment membrane units is a serious problem, which makes the membrane process less efficient and more expensive, therefore more research must be done to reduce and manage the formation of a biofilm by tuning the operating conditions such as the flow. One of the problems is the viscoelastic nature of biofilms, therefore the viscosity and viscoelastic parameters should be studied non-invasively and during flow . This could in principle be done in a cylindrical glass capillary optically with Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). So far this has only been studied with a water flow. Therefore in this Thesis a model compound, that could also be found in biofilms, called xanthan gum is used. The measurement of the viscosity has been done with and without flow through the capillary. For the no flow measurements the Stokes-Einstein equation and a microrheology model have been used in order to get information on the viscosity and viscoelastic parameters. For the flow experiments a two parameter fit was used to obtain the velocity and viscosity of the fluid flows simultaneously. From the no-flow experiments it can be concluded that microrheology can be used to obtain a trend in the viscosity which correspond to high shear rates and from the flow experiments it can be concluded that the velocity profile can be measured quite well and the viscosity profile as function of shear rate can only be obtained by combining results from different flow rates. With these findings it becomes more clear how the OCT could potentially be used in future research to measure the viscosity of biofilms under operating conditions in a micro channel. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | TNW: Science and Technology |
| Subject: | 35 chemistry |
| Programme: | Chemical Engineering BSc (56960) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/73239 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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