Low-cost viscometer based on energy dissipation in viscous liquids

2001

We describe a new type of low-cost easy-to-use viscometer based on the temperature elevation in a liquid under shear flow. After calibration, this instrument can be used to measure the apparent steady state viscosity for both Newtonian and non-Newtonian liquids with no yield stress. We compute the rise in temperature due to viscous dissipation in a Couette cell and compare it to experimental results for different fluids. We show that the variation of the temperature with shear rate can be used to characterize the rheological behaviour of viscous fluids and to evaluate their viscosity in a large domain, from typically a few cP up to more than 10 P, with an accuracy of about ±5%. In contrast …