THE BACK EXTRUSION TEST AS A TECHNIQUE FOR DETERMINING THE RHEOLOGICAL AND TRIBOLOGICAL BEHAVIOUR OF YIELD STRESS FLUIDS AT LOW SHEAR RATES

A new method is developed to determine the rheological and tribological behaviour of viscoplastic fluids using a back extrusion test. In back extrusion geometry, the material is forced to flow in the gap between the inner and the outer cylinder. Such a flow is modelled by a Bingham constitutive law under different wall boundary conditions (stick, slip with friction and perfect slip). When steady-state flow is reached, an apparent shear rate is computed. The analysis of the inner cylinder penetration force versus the penetration depth helps us to develop a method to identify the fluid rheological and tribological properties. This method is based on an inverse analysis to identify the fluid behaviour para meters from experiments performed at different ram velocities and with different apparatus geometries. In order to study more complex fluids (Herschell-bulkley rheological behaviour, for example), an equivalent flow curve is plotted from tests characterized by different average shear rates. The tribological behaviour is identified using different wall boundary conditions, varying the surface roughness of the cylinders. The method is applied to oil/sugar suspension and plasticine. Rheological and tribological behaviours are identified and results are compared with those obtained under steady state shear flow. The obtained rheological parameters are close to those provided by the common rheological methods (difference lower than 15%).