Deepak Arora

Bio: Deepak Arora is an academic researcher from Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur. The author has contributed to research in topics: Porous medium & Crystallization of polymers. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 4 publications receiving 48 citations. Previous affiliations of Deepak Arora include Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Extensional flow-induced crystallization of isotactic poly-1-butene using a filament stretching rheometer

Abstract: A filament stretching rheometer is used to investigate the extensional flow-induced crystallization of two commercial grade isotactic poly-1-butene samples. The degree of crystallinity of the stretched fibers is quantified using differential scanning calorimetry measurements as a function of extension rate and accumulated Hencky strains. All the measurements are performed using the Janeschitz-Kriegel protocol. The samples are first melted to erase their thermal and mechanical history. They are then quickly quenched to T=98°C after which the stretch is imposed. The deformed filament is then allowed to crystallize fully at T=98°C. The extensional rheology of both the samples shows only minimal strain hardening. For the case of the lower molecular weight sample, the percent crystallinity increases from 46% under quiescent conditions to a maximum of 63% at an extension rate of e=0.05 s−1. This corresponds to an increase of nearly 50% above the quiescent case. The high molecular weight sample shows similar tr...

Experimental investigation of fluid drop spreading on heterogeneous and anisotropic porous media

Abstract: Study of spreading phenomena on porous substrates is important from theoretical as well as applications point of view. An example of such applications is composite processing, where operations involve displacement of air/volatiles by polymeric fluids through porous media composed of fibers. In this work, dynamics of drop spreading was investigated on fibrous porous substrates used in composite processing. These porous media are heterogeneous and anisotropic. Spreading front of silicon oil drops was tracked on borosilicate glass, quartz, and two different kinds of glass fiber mats: woven fabric and unidirectional. For the woven fabric, spreading front was observed to progress in steps of increasing and decreasing rate. For the unidirectional mat, the spreading front progressed with decreasing rate. The dynamics of spreading were fitted to power law in order to compare results with other porous substrates.

Modelling flow-enhanced crystallisation during fused filament fabrication of semi-crystalline polymer melts

Abstract: Achieving better control in fused filament fabrication (FFF) relies on a molecular understanding of how thermoplastic printing materials behave during the printing process. For semi-crystalline polymers, the ultimate crystal morphology and how it develops during cooling is crucial to determining part properties. Here crystallisation kinetics are added to a previously-developed model, which contains a molecularly-aware constitutive equation to describe polymer stretch and orientation during typical non-isothermal FFF flow, and conditions under which flow-enhanced nucleation occurs due to residual stretch are revealed. Flow-enhanced nucleation leads to accelerated crystallisation times at the surface of a deposited filament, whilst the bulk of the filament is governed by slower quiescent kinetics. The predicted time to 10% crystallinity, t10, is in quantitative agreement with in-situ Raman spectroscopy measurements of polycaprolactone (PCL). The model highlights important features not captured by a single measurement of t10. In particular, the crystal morphology varies cross-sectionally, with smaller spherulites forming in an outer skin layer, explaining features observed in full transient crystallisation measurements. Finally, exploitation of flow-enhanced crystallisation is proposed as a mechanism to increase weld strength at the interface between deposited filaments.

Droplet spreading and absorption on rough, permeable substrates

Abstract: Wetting of permeable substrates by liquids is an important phenomenon in many natural and industrial processes. Substrate heterogeneities may significantly alter liquid spreading and interface shapes, which in turn may alter liquid imbibition. A new lubrication-theory-based model for droplet spreading on permeable substrates that incorporates surface roughness is developed in this work. The substrate is assumed to be saturated with liquid, and the contact-line region is described by including a precursor film and disjoining pressure. A novel boundary condition for liquid imbibition is applied that eliminates the need for a droplet-thickness-dependent substrate permeability that has been employed in previous models. A nonlinear evolution equation describing droplet height as a function of time and the radial coordinate is derived and then numerically solved to characterize the influence of substrate permeability and roughness on axisymmetric droplet spreading. Because it incorporates surface roughness, the new model is able to describe the contact-line pinning that has been observed in experiments but not captured by previous models.

Extensional-flow-induced crystallization of isotactic polypropylene

Abstract: A filament stretching extensional rheometer with a custom-built oven was used to investigate the effect of uniaxial flow on the crystallization of polypropylene. Prior to stretching, samples were heated to a temperature well above the melt temperature to erase their thermal and mechanical histories and the Janeschitz-Kriegl protocol was applied. The samples were stretched at extension rates in the range of $0.01\,\mbox{s}^{-1}\le \dot{{\varepsilon }}\le 0.75\,{\rm s}^{-1}$ to a final strain of e = 3.0. After stretching, the samples were allowed to crystallize isothermally. Differential scanning calorimetry was applied to the crystallized samples to measure the degree of crystallinity. The results showed that a minimum extension rate is required for an increase in percent crystallization to occur and that there is an extension rate for which percent crystallization is maximized. No increase in crystallization was observed for extension rates below a critical extension rate corresponding to a Weissenberg number of approximately Wi = 1. Below this Weissenberg number, the flow is not strong enough to align the contour path of the polymer chains within the melt and as a result there is no change in the final percent crystallization from the quiescent state. Beyond this critical extension rate, the percent crystallization was observed to increase to a maximum, which was 18% greater than the quiescent case, before decaying again at higher extension rates. The increase in crystallinity is likely due to flow-induced orientation and alignment of contour path of the polymer chains in the flow direction. Polarized light microscopy verified an increase in number of spherulites and a decrease in spherulite size with increasing extension rate. In addition, small angle X-ray scattering showed a 7% decrease in inter-lamellar spacing at the transition to flow-induced crystallization. Although an increase in strain resulted in a slight increase in percent crystallization, no significant trends were observed. Crystallization kinetics were examined as a function of extension rate by observing the time required for molten samples to crystallize under uniaxial flow. The crystallization time was defined as the time at which a sudden increase in the transient force measurement was observed. The crystallization time was found to decrease as one over the extension rate, even for extension rates where no increase in percent crystallization was observed. As a result, the onset of extensional-flow-induced crystallization was found to occur at a constant value of strain equal to e c = 5.8.