Dynamics of particle migration in confined viscoelastic Poiseuille flows

Particles migrate in the transverse direction of the flow due to the existence of normal stress anisotropy in weakly viscoelastic liquids. We test the ability of theoretical predictions to predict the transverse velocity migration of particles in a confined Poiseuille flow according to the viscoelastic constitutive parameters of dilute polymer solutions. First, we carefully characterize the viscoelastic properties of two families of dilute polymer solutions at various concentrations using shear rheometry and capillary breakup experiments. Second, we develop a specific three-dimensional particle tracking velocimetry method to measure with a high accuracy the dynamics of particles focusing in flow for Weissenberg numbers Wi ranging from 10(-2) to 10(-1) and particle confinement beta of 0.1 and 0.2. The results show unambiguously that the migration velocity scales as Wi beta(2), as expected theoretically for weakly elastic flows of an Oldroyd-B liquid. We conclude that classic constitutive viscoelastic laws are relevant to predict particle migration in dilute polymer solutions whereas detailed analysis of our results reveals that theoretical models overestimate by a few tenths the efficiency of particle focusing.