Rheological behavior of dilute bubble suspensions in polyol

Low Reynolds number, dilute, and surfactant-free bubble suspensions are prepared by mechanical mixing after introducing carbon dioxide bubbles into a Newtonian liquid, polyol. The apparent shear viscosity is measured with a wide-gap parallel plate rheometer by imposing a simple shear flow of capillary numbers(Ca) of the order of $10^{-2}$ ~ $10^{-1}$ and for various gas volume fractions ($\phi$). Effects of capillary numbers and gas volume fractions on the viscosity of polyol foam are investigated. At high capillary number, viscosity of the suspension increases as the gas volume fraction increases, while at low capillary number, the viscosity decreases as the gas volume fraction increases. An empirical constitutive equation that is similar to the Frankel and Acrivos equation is proposed by fitting experimental data. A numerical simulation for deformation of a single bubble suspended in a Newtonian fluid is conducted by using a newly developed two-dimensional numerical code using a finite volume method (FVM). Although the bubble is treated by a circular cylinder in the two dimensional analysis, numerical results are in good agreement with experimental results.