Oscillatory behavior with fiber orientation in the flow–vorticity plane for fiber suspension under large amplitude oscillatory shear flow

In fiber suspensions, fibers with three-dimensional orientation states are dramatically flow-oriented in the flow–flow gradient plane when the flow starts. In contrast, large strains are required for flow orientation in the flow–vorticity plane. Under oscillatory shear flow, when the strain amplitude is small, the flow orientation in the flow–vorticity plane is weakly induced, unlike that in the flow–flow gradient plane. The orientation in the flow–vorticity plane increases with the strain amplitude. At large strain amplitudes, fibers are oriented in the flow–flow gradient plane; thus, the rotational motion of fibers in the flow–flow gradient plane is dominant, i.e., fibers are almost flow-oriented in the flow–vorticity plane. However, contributions of the oscillatory behavior of fiber orientation in the flow–flow gradient and flow–vorticity planes to complex viscosity are unclear. In this study, the objective is to determine the contributions of fiber orientation in each plane to complex viscosity with the two initial orientation states (random and flow-oriented states) for the strain sweep test. The two initial orientation states were controlled by manipulating the upper disk of the parallel disk flow path. The initial random state was induced by sliding the upper disk up and down. The initial flow-oriented state was induced by rotating the upper plate. Furthermore, phase transition behaviors from the random to flow-oriented state in the flow–vorticity plane with increasing strain amplitude were qualitatively estimated as the orientation angle via visualization. Consequently, when the initial orientation was random, the fibers gradually vibrated in a medium strain amplitude region, and complex viscosity was higher than that of the initial flow-oriented state. In the conclusion, we divided the complex viscosity behavior of the strain sweep test into five strain amplitude regions and clarified the dominant orientation state in each region. It is conceivable that this result will help in understanding the relationship between fiber orientation and dynamic viscoelastic properties of fiber suspension like fiber-reinforced thermoplastics.