Study of Lyotropic Liquid Crystals in Viscometric Flow and Elastohydrodynamic Contact

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Abstract
Lyotropic liquid crystals of triethanolammonium oleate in several nonaqueous solvents were prepared and characterized. Their rheology and elastohydrodynamic contact behavior were investigated. Under the conditions studied, they are non-Newtonian, shear thinning fluids whose behavior up to shear rates of 2500 s−1 can be described by a rheological equation. In elastohydrodynamic contact, at high pressure/high shear, they had effective viscosities larger than would be predicted from their low shear rate behavior, perhaps due to a limiting shear stress condition. They behaved as homogeneous liquid crystalline fluids and, like greases, certain formulations exhibited a tendency to starve the contact.