Grease is commonly used to lubricate various machine components such as rolling element
bearings, open gears etc. Better understanding of the flow properties of grease will contribute to
understanding the lubrication mechanism in bearings and flow in lubrication systems. In an earlier paper
Micro Particle Image Velocimetry (μPIV) techniques were used to study the flow in a rectangular channel.
The present paper is an extension of this work where restrictions were applied in such a channel, which
creates a much more complex velocity field. The grease is seeded with fluorescent particles, which are
illuminated by a double-pulsed laser. The test geometries that are used in this study are a channel with one
flat restriction and one with two flow restrictions in a similar channel. The stationary grease mass-flow and
the two dimensional velocity fields have been monitored for different pressure drops. For the channel with
one flat restriction, the flow was measured to be symmetric at the inlet and outlet, and the distance for the
flow to fully develop is comparable with the height of the channel; Slow motion was followed near the step
corner at the inlet. For the channel with two flow restrictions, the vector profiles show that the maximum
velocity appears at the restrictions; In-between the two restrictions, a part of the grease is not moving. This
particularly applies to cases with low-pressure drop and where high consistency grease was used.