Effect of non-newtonian viscosity for surfactant solutions on vortex characteristics in a swirling pipe flow

Effects of non-Newtonian viscosity for surfactant solution on the vortex characteristics and drag-reducing rate in a swirling pipe flow are investigated by pressure drop measurements, velocity profile measurements and viscosity measurements. Non-Newtonian viscosity is represented by power-law model (τ=kDn). Surfactant solution used has shear-thinning viscosity with n<1.0. The swirling flow in this study has decay of swirl and vortex-type change from Rankin’s combined vortex to forced vortex. It is shown that the effect of shear-thinning viscosity on the decay of swirl intensity is different by vortex category and the critical swirl number with the vortex-type change depends on shear-thinning viscosity.