Asymptotics of a small liquid drop on a cone and plate rheometer

Cregan, V. and O'Brien, Stephen B.G. and McKee, Sean; Günther, Michael and Bartel, Andreas and Brunk, Markus and Schöps, Sebastian and Striebel, Michael, eds. (2012) Asymptotics of a small liquid drop on a cone and plate rheometer. In: Progress in Industrial Mathematics at ECMI 2010. Mathematics in Industry: Progress in Industrial Mathematics at ECMI 2010, 17 . Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 449-455. ISBN 9783642250996 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25100-9_51)

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Abstract

A cone and a plate rheometer is a laboratory apparatus used to measure the viscosity and other related parameters of a non-Newtonian liquid subject to an applied force. A small drop, of order millimetres, of the liquid is located between the horizontal plate and the shallow cone of the rheometer. Rotation of the cone ensues, the liquid begins to flow and the plate starts to rotate. Liquid parameters are inferred based on the difference in the applied rotational force and the resulting rotational force of the plate. To describe the flow of the drop, the initial drop configuration, before rotation commences, must be determined. The equilibrium drop profile is given by the solution to the well-known nonlinear Young-Laplace equation. We formulate asymptotic solutions for the drop profile based on the small Bond number. The modelling of the drop exhibits a rich asymptotic structure consisting of five distinct scalings which are resolved via the method matched asymptotics.