Effect of the solvent viscosity on pure electro-osmotic flow of viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

In this work the fully-developed steady channel flow of the homogeneous polymer solution studied in [4] is revisited and a completely new analytical solution is proposed which is devoid of the limitations of the previous solution (β3ɛDeκ 2≤2/27), i.e., it is valid for the complete range of the rheological parameters. The viscoelastic fluid is described by the simplified Phan–Thien and Tanner model with linear stress coefficient function for the polymer contribution plus a Newtonian solvent. The solution is also valid if the polymer contribution is described by the finitely extensive non-linear elastic model with the Peterlin approximation for the average spring force (FENE-P model).