Effects of crystalline anisotropy on resonant acoustic loss of torsional quartz viscometers

Abstract

Vibrational modes of unrestrained elastic cylinders of trigonal crystals are studied using Ritz-based polynomial approximations for displacements formulated in rectangular Cartesian coordinates. The selected orientation of the threefold trigonal axis is perpendicular to the cylinder axis, corresponding to the configuration employed in torsional quartz viscometry (TQV) for characterizing Newtonian fluids. A revised working equation for TQV is derived, incorporating effects of crystalline anisotropy, and Ritz results are used to numerically quantify effects of acoustic radiation from surface-normal displacements and viscous loss from nontorsional surface-parallel displacements of resonant modes corresponding to the purely torsional modes of isotropic cylinders traditionally employed as an approximation in TQV analysis. For a cylinder typical of TQV, with 3 mm diameter and 50 mm length, the anisotropy-related correction to the extracted fluid viscosity is a positive shift of 36 ppm relative to the isotropic approximation, if radiative losses are neglected. This contribution is independent of fluid properties. Radiative losses depend on the properties of the fluid and reduce the extracted viscosity. The total magnitude of corrections varies between several tens of parts per million for low density gases to values on the order of 0.01% for normal liquids near atmospheric pressure and 0.06% for superfluid helium.