Constitutive modeling of Poly Vinyl Alcohol-Sodium Borate gel

Kumar, Nitin (2014) Constitutive modeling of Poly Vinyl Alcohol-Sodium Borate gel. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad.

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Abstract

PVA-SB gels have physico-chemical properties that help them find use as fracturing fluids- used to fracture deep rock formations to facilitate flow of petroleum- in the petroleum industry. Aqueous solutions of 4% poly-vinyl alcohol (PVA), and varying concentrations (1%, 2%, 3%, 4%) of sodium borate (SB) were mixed to generate PVA-SB solutions. These solutionswere kept aside for a week for gel formation to complete.Small amplitude oscillatory shear data was obtained for the PVA-SB gel, and frequency sweep data was obtained for a strain amplitude of 1%, and angular frequency (ω) range of 0.05 sec-1 to 500 sec-1. The storage (G’) and loss modulus (G”) variation with angular frequency in the range of 0.05 sec-1 and 50 sec-1 closely resembled the profile obtainable from a classical Maxwell fluid. In order to match the data with a model, we simulated the flow of a classical Maxwell fluid under small amplitude (1%) oscillatory shear in a cone-and-plate Rheometer: we thereby obtained the predicted values of G’ and G’’. We fitted the parameters for the Maxwell fluid so as to match the predicted values of G’ and G’’ with the experimentally obtained values for PVA-SB gels.

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