Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics (CEAFM) Seminar

Description

The Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics presents Johns Hopkins professor Mark Robbins, Department of Physics & Astronomy, who will discuss "Fluid Flow Far From Equilibrium: From Shear Thinning to the Glass Transition" in this week's CEAFM seminar, hosted by Charles Meneveau of the department of Mechanical engineering.

ABSTRACT:
The talk will describe nonlinear rheology in extreme conditions that change fluid structure and flow mechanisms. Elongational flow of entangled polymers produces near complete molecular alignment but only changes the viscosity by an order of magnitude and does not destroy the confining tube. A transition in the mechanism of shear thinning in lubricants from alignment to thermal activation is shown to be generic and allows simulations to examine whether the viscosity diverges at a finite glass transition temperature.