Microchannel measurements of viscosity for both gases and liquids

Abstract

Quantifying the viscosity of a fluid is of great importance in determining its properties and can even be used to identify what the fluid is. While many techniques exist for measuring the viscosity of either gases or liquids, it is very challenging to probe both gases and liquids with a single approach because of the significant difference in their nature, and the vast difference in the values of their viscosities. We introduce a facile approach to measuring the viscosity of a Newtonian fluid, either a gas or a liquid, by flowing it through a deformable microchannel where the deformation depends on the pressure required to induce the flow, which, in turn, depends on the fluid viscosity. A strain gauge embedded just above and across the microchannel transduces the flow-induced deformation into strain. The strain is proportional to the square of the flow-induced deformation enabling us to precisely discriminate not only gases but also liquids based on their viscosities with the same device.