Particle migration in shear thinning viscoelastic fluid

Current understanding of migration dynamics of microparticles in Shear-thinning viscoelastic (STVE) medium at low Reynolds numbers (Re) is very much limited owing to the complex rheology. We performed experiments with rigid microparticles of 15 m diamater in popular STVE liquids polyacrylamide (PAM)) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) and of different molecular weights (MW) and concentrations (), for Re < ͳ. Microparticles in an STVE liquid revealed five different migration regimes: original streamline (OS), bimodal (BM), centre migration (CM), defocusing (DF) and Wall migration (WM), depending upon the Re and and dynamics of relevant forces are also discussed.