This Research Initiation Award will initiate development of an experimental program to enable quantitative evaluation of the full, two-dimensional kinematic fields within a complex viscoelastic flow. A video-based particle-tracking technique referred to as Digital Particle Image Velocimetry is used which employs high resolution monochrome CCD cameras and fast digital signal processing algorithms to eliminate the time-consuming photographic and optomechanical steps associated with conventional particle-imaging methodologies. The apparatus will be used in detailed studies of the flow instabilities that develop during the slow flow of highly viscoelastic materials through model geometries that are characteristic of typical industrial processes.
