Relationship between fiber orientation and solvent viscosity for short-fiber suspension

Abstract

This study focuses on the relationship between the fiber orientation behavior and the solvent viscosity for fiber orientation and the parameters of the F-T-S model of Rheological model. The step shear experiments applied to fiber suspension with different solvent viscosity. The fiber orientation was visualized by a microscope attached to a rotational rheometer with glass parallel plate flow cell. As an experimental result, the viscosity of solvent is independent to the steady state of fiber orientation, but not to the transient state. Then, the visualized orientation behavior was fitted by the orientation predicted by the F-T-S model. The two model parameters, the F-T constant and the slip factor, respectively have the relationship to the steady state and the transient state of the fiber orientation. As the same as the experimental behavior, the slip factor dramatically depends on the solvent viscosity. The F-T constant is agreed with the equation by Phan-Thien et al.