Gas displacement of viscoplastic liquids in capillary tubes

Abstract The displacement of viscoplastic liquids in capillary tubes by gas injection is examined. The viscoplasticity alters the flow kinematics and changes dramatically the amount of mass left attached at the tube wall as compared to the Newtonian case, studied experimentally by G.I. Taylor in 1961 [G.I. Taylor, Deposition of a viscous fluid on the wall of a tube, J. Fluid Mech. 10 (1961) 161–165]. Experiments with Carbopol aqueous solutions were performed for different flow rates. A recently proposed viscosity function for viscoplastic liquids was fitted to the rheological data of the Carbopol solutions. A new dimensionless rheological property – the jump number – arises in the dimensionless version of this viscosity function. The results show the effect of the viscoplastic character of the liquid on the free surface shape and on the thickness of the film of liquid left attached to the wall. This thickness decreases with the jump number and increases with the flow rate. It is also observed that there is a critical dimensionless flow rate below which the displacement is apparently perfect, i.e. there is no observable liquid left attached to the wall. This behavior is shown to be directly related to the fully developed flow far ahead the air–liquid interface.