Rheological behavior of low-viscous emulsions and interpretation with a theoretical model

Two high frequency resonant probes are implemented for the measurement of the rheological behavior of four oil-in-water model emulsions. The measurements are made in a frequency range, which includes the reciprocal relaxation time of the suspended droplets, where droplet deformation based elasticity is expected to occur. The measured rheological behavior is compared with values resulting from the monodisperse Palierne model. Experimental results show that provided that hydrodynamic and viscous forces prevail over Brownian, respectively, inertial forces for the deformation of the fluid droplets, i.e. measurements are done at high Péclet and low particle Reynolds numbers, the emulsion samples investigated in the present work behave in an appreciable extent in the manner predicted by the Palierne model.