A numerical study of the motion of a spherical drop rising in shear-thinning fluid systems (Q1434722)

The authors experimentally and computationally consider the motion of a Newtonian spherical drop rising freely through inelastic shar-thinnings fluids expressed by the generalized Cross-Carreau model. As a consequence, the authors come to the following conclusion: the contributions of the shear-thinning effect to the drop motion, which are difficult to evaluate from an experimental approach, are clearly revealed by numerical results. The authors show that, when non-Newtonian properties are weak, it is computationally shown that results are dominated by zero shear-rate viscosity. Moreover, they discuss the modified Reynolds and Morton numbers in order to more exactly describe the motion of a freely-rising drop or bubble in shear-thinning fluid systems.