Angular dynamics of non-spherical particles in linear flows related to production of biobased materials

Abstract: Dispersed particle flows are encountered in many biological, geophysical but also in industrial situations, e.g. during processing of materials. In these flows, the particles usually are non-spherical and their angular dynamics play a crucial role for the final material properties. Generally, the angular dynamics of a particle is dependent on the local flow in the frame-of-reference of this particle. In this frame, the surrounding flow can be linearized and the linear velocity gradient will determine how the particle rotates. In this thesis, the main objective is to improve the fundamental knowledge of the angular dynamics of non-spherical particles related to two specific biobased material processes.Firstly, the flow of suspended cellulose fibers in a papermaking process is used as a motivation. In this process, strong shear rates close to walls and the size of the fibers motivates the study of inertial effects on a single particle in a simple shear flow. Through direct numerical simulations combined with a global stability analysis, this flow problem is approached and all stable rotational states are found for spheroidal particles with aspect ratios ranging from moderately slender fibers to thin disc-shaped particles.The second material process of interest is the production of strong cellulose filaments produced through hydrodynamic alignment and assembly of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF). The flow in the preparation process and the small size of the particles motivates the study of alignment and rotary diffusion of CNF in a strain flow. However, since the particles are smaller than the wavelength of visible light, the dynamics of CNF is not easily captured with standard optical techniques. With a new flow-stop experiment, rotary diffusion of CNF is measured using Polarized optical microscopy. This process is found to be quite complicated, where short-range interactions between fibrils seem to play an important role. New time-resolved X-ray characterization techniques were used to target the underlying mechanisms, but are found to be limited by the strong degradation of CNF due to the radiation.Although the results in this thesis have limited direct applicability, they provide important fundamental stepping stones towards the possibility to control fiber orientation in flows and can potentially lead to new tailor-made materials assembled from a nano-scale.