Rheological characteristics and turbulent friction drag and heat transfer reductions of a very dilute cationic surfactant solution

Turbulent friction drag and heat transfer reductions and rheological characteristics of a very dilute cationic surfactant solution, cetyltrimethyl ammonium chloride (CTAC)/sodium salicylate (NaSal) aqueous solution, were experimentally investigated at various temperatures. It was found that there existed a critical temperature above which drag and heat transfer reductions disappeared and shear viscosities rapidly dropped to that of water. It was surmised that drag and heat transfer reductions had a certain relationship with rheological characteristics and a rheological characterization of CTAC/NaSal surfactant solutions was performed to clarify this relationship. The effects of Reynolds number and fluid temperature and concentration on drag and heat transfer reductions were qualitatively explained by analyzing the measured shear viscosity data at different shear rates and solution temperatures and concentrations. The Giesekus model was found to fit the measured shear viscosities reasonably well for different temperatures and concentrations of the surfactant solution and the model parameter values obtained by fitting were correlated with temperature at certain solution concentrations. From the correlation results, the temperature effect on viscoelasticity of surfactant solutions was analyzed to relate the rheological characteristics with drag and heat transfer reduction phenomena.