Unsteady laminar pipe flow of a Carbopol gel. Part I: experiment

A experimental study of low Reynolds numbers unsteady pipe flows of a yield stress shear thinning fluid (Carbopol- 980) is presented. The investigation of the solid-fluid transition in a rheometric flow in the presence and in the ab- sence of the wall slip reveals a coupling between the irreversible deformation states and the wall slip phenomenon. Particularly, the presence of wall slip nearly suppresses the scaling of the deformation power deficit associated to the rheological hysteresis with the rate at which the material is forced. The irreversible solid-fluid transition and the wall slip behaviour emerge in the same range of the applied stresses and thus, the two phenomena appear to be coupled to each other. In-situ measurements of the flow fields performed during an increasing/decreasing stepped pressure ramp reveal three distinct flow regimes: solid (pluglike), solid-fluid and fluid. The deformation power deficit associated with the hysteresis observed during the increasing/decreasing branches of the pressure ramps reveals a dependence on the rate at which the unsteady flow is driven consistent with that observed during the rheological measurements in the presence of slip. The dependence of the slip velocity on the wall shear stresses reveals a Navier-type slip behaviour only within the fluid flow regime, which indicates that the wall slip phenomenon is directly coupled to the solid-fluid transition. A universal scaling of the slip velocity with the wall velocity gradients is found and the slip length is independent on the characteristic time of forcing t0. The paper closes with a discussion of the main findings, their possible impact on our current understanding of the yielding and slip behaviour of Carbopol gels. Several steps worth being pursued by future experimental/theoretical studies are proposed.