The addition of a starch or gum-based thickener to patient fluids with dysphagia is commonly carried out, but the mechanism behind the efficacy of this treatment is not fully understood. This paper describes the rheological behavior of two commercially available thickening powders and an additional xanthan gum solution with a view to explaining the efficacy of thickened fluids in terms of their rheology. Both linear viscoelastic and steady shear data were obtained for the fluids together with filament extensional stretch, decay, and breakup data. In order to follow the behavior of the fluids in a processing situation, a mechanical "Cambridge Throat" was designed and tested. The action of the tongue was modeled using a constant torque cam that forced fluid contained within a flexible membrane through a model throat. Movie photography captured images of the fluid behavior and showed that for a constant tongue torque, the transit time within the model throat increased with increasing fluid viscosity, with implications for the time available for the successful function of the larynx, throat muscles, and epiglottis. V

BackgroundBiological fluids often have interesting and unusual physical properties to adapt them for their specific purpose. Laboratory-based rheometers can be used to characterise the viscoelastic properties of such fluids. This, however, can be challenging as samples often do not retain their natural properties in storage while conventional rheometers are fragile and expensive devices ill-suited for field measurements. We present a portable, low-cost extensional rheometer designed specifically to enable in situ studies of biological fluids in the field. The design of the device (named Seymour) is based on a conventional capillary break-up extensional rheometer (the Cambridge Trimaster). It works by rapidly stretching a small fluid sample between two metal pistons. A battery-operated solenoid switch triggers the pistons to move apart rapidly and a compact, robust and inexpensive, USB 3 high speed camera is used to record the thinning and break-up of the fluid filament that forms between the pistons. The complete setup runs independently of mains electricity supply and weighs approximately 1 kg. Post-processing and analysis of the recorded images to extract rheological parameters is performed using open source software.ResultsThe device was tested both in the laboratory and in the field, in Brunei Darussalam, using calibration fluids (silicone oil and carboxymethyl cellulose solutions) as well as Nepenthes pitcher plant trapping fluids as an example of a viscoelastic biological fluid. The fluid relaxation times ranged from 1 ms to over 1 s. The device gave comparable performance to the Cambridge Trimaster. Differences in fluid viscoelasticity between three species were quantified, as well as the change in viscoelasticity with storage time. This, together with marked differences between N. rafflesiana fluids taken from greenhouse and wild plants, confirms the need for a portable device.ConclusionsProof of concept of the portable rheometer was demonstrated. Quantitative measurements of pitcher plant fluid viscoelasticity were made in the natural habitat for the first time. The device opens up opportunities for studying a wide range of plant fluids and secretions, under varying experimental conditions, or with changing temperatures and weather conditions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13007-015-0059-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We report proof-of-concept results for a fluid dynamic gauging (FDG) device for measuring the thickness and strength of soft solid fouling layers immersed in an opaque liquid in situ and in real time at elevated pressures and temperatures. The device reported here is configured to make measurements on the inner rod of an annular flow test section but the concept is generic. Data are presented from tests using mineral oil at temperatures and pressures up to 140 °C and 10 bara, respectively. Problems with the prototype hardware prevented testing up to the design limits of 270 ºC and 30 bara. The practical working range of the gauge, i.e. 0.10 < h/d t < 0.25, proved to be unaffected by the pressure and temperature. h is the nozzle-surface clearance and d t the nozzle throat diameter. At smaller h/d t values the pressure drop across the nozzle is very high and this can serve as an alarm for close approach. The range of discharge coefficient, C d, values obtained is sensitive to flow rate when the Reynolds number at the throat, Re t , falls below 20. A useful range of C d values is obtained when Re t > 40. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the gauging flow in these quasi-static experiments (no bulk liquid flow) gave good agreement with experimental data for the cases tested. The CFD results showed that the low Re t regime is related to creeping flow in the nozzle. CFD calculations of the shear stress being imposed on the surface being gauged gave good agreement with an analytical model for flow between parallel discs, indicating that the latter can be used to estimate the maximum shear stress imposed by the gauging flows measurements.