RHEOLOGICA ACTA, vol.42, no.6, pp.534-543, 2003 (SCI-Expanded)
A new method for determining viscosity of liquids is examined. The method employs the principles of vibration and measures the viscous damping due to the motion of a liquid placed in a cylindrical tube. The apparatus and the test liquid are treated as a dynamic system and the measured mechanical impedances are used to calculate energy dissipation due to the viscous damping. The newly designed apparatus is able to generate shear deformations in the liquid without using moving solid surfaces. A harmonic varying force with a frequency close to the resonance frequency of the system is applied through a piston and the resulting velocities of the oscillations generated in the system are measured. Liquids with higher viscosities result in lower velocities due to the higher damping. Analytical equations are provided to relate the viscous damping of the dynamic system to the viscosity of the liquids. The viscosities obtained from the proposed method are in good agreement with the ones obtained from standard rotational viscometry using a cone and plate geometry.