BOROSILOXANE VISCO-ELASTIC FLUIDS ARE ORGANOSILICON POYMERS WHICH POSSESS EXTREMELY HIGH RESILIENCE PROPERTIES WHEN SUBJECTED TO RAPID, SHOCK-LIKE STRESSES BUT REACT LIKE A VISCOUS FLUID UNDER CONDITIONS OF SLOW DEFORMATION.

BOROSILOXANE VISCO-ELASTIC FLUIDS ARE ORGANOSILICON POYMERS WHICH POSSESS EXTREMELY HIGH RESILIENCE PROPERTIES WHEN SUBJECTED TO RAPID, SHOCK-LIKE STRESSES BUT REACT LIKE A VISCOUS FLUID UNDER CONDITIONS OF SLOW DEFORMATION. AN IMPORTANT INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION FOR BOROSILOXANE, HAS BEEN FOUND IN THE FINISH MACHINING OF FABRICATED PARTS. THE BOROSILOXANE "FLUID" IS HOMOGENEOUSLY MIXED WITH ABRASIVE PARTICLES AND THE FLOW OF THIS MIXTURE ACCOMPLISHES ABRASIVE MACHINING AT A MICRO-MACHINING LEVEL. UNFORTUNATELY, NO ADEQUATE MODEL EXISTS FOR THE BEHAVIOR OF THIS CLASS OF ORGANOSILICON POLYMERS. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUCH A MODEL WOULD LEAD TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE THEORETICAL AND FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES OF BOROSILOXANE AND EXTEND THE PRESENT USEFUL APPLICATIONS TO A BROADER RANGE OF PROBLEMS. FURTHERMORE, A NUMBER OF NON-MACHINING APPLICATIONS ARE ENVISIONED FOR THE UNIQUE PROPERTIES OF BOROSILOXANE. THESE INCLUDE IMPACT ABSORBTION AND FORCE TRANSFER. THE PROGRAM OBJECTIVES ARE: 1. DESIGN EXPERIMENTS AND BUILD HARDWARE WHICH WILL PERMIT THE MEASUREMENT OF FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF BOROSILOXANE. 2. CONDUCT FLOW EXPERIMENTS THAT WILL PERMIT RECORDING OF THE NON-NEWTONIAN FLOW PATTERN ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUDDEN CONTRACTION PHENOMENON AND THE STICK SLIP BOUNDARY CONDITIONS. 3. DEVELOP PRELIMINARY THEORETICAL AND COMPUTER MODELS WHICH CAN BE CORRELATED WITH THE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS TO PREDICT FLOW BEHAVIOR.