Spreading of Non-Newtonian and Newtonian Fluids on a Solid Substrate under Pressure

Strongly non-Newtonian fluids namely, aqueous gels of starch, are shown to exhibit visco-elastic behavior, when subjected to a load. We study arrowroot and potato starch gels. When a droplet of the fluid is sandwiched between two glass plates and compressed, the area of contact between the fluid and plates increases in an oscillatory manner. This is unlike Newtonian fluids, where the area increases monotonically in a similar situation. The periphery moreover, develops an instability, which looks similar to Saffman Taylor fingers. This is not normally seen under compression. The loading history is also found to affect the manner of spreading. We attempt to describe the non-Newtonian nature of the fluid through a visco-elastic model incorporating generalized calculus. This is shown to reproduce qualitatively the oscillatory variation in the surface strain.

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