Related papers: Cyclically sheared colloidal gels: structural chan…
Granular packings of non-convex or elongated particles can form free-standing structures like walls or arches. For some particle shapes, such as staples, the rigidity arises from interlocking of pairs of particles, but the origins of…
Understanding the structural origins of glass formation and mechanical response remains a central challenge in condensed matter physics. Recent studies have identified the local caging potential experienced by a particle due to its nearest…
In this work, we study the rheological behavior of colloidal dispersion of charge-screened nanoparticles of silica suspended in aqueous media that exhibits soft solid-like consistency. We observe that the system shows various…
When a disordered solid is sheared, yielding is followed by the onset of intermittent response that is characterized by slip in local regions usually labeled shear-transformation zones (STZ). Such intermittent response resembles the…
Dense suspensions of soft colloidal particles display a broad range of physical and rheological properties which are still far from being fully understood. To elucidate the role of deformability on colloidal flow, we employ computer…
Understanding the mechanical response and failure of solids is of obvious importance in their use as structural materials. The nature of plastic deformation leading to yielding of amorphous solids has been vigorously pursued in recent…
A bulk metallic glass forming alloy is subjected to shear flow in its supercooled state by compression of a short rod to produce a flat disc. The resulting material exhibits enhanced crystallization kinetics during isothermal annealing as…
One of the most ubiquitous and technologically important phenomena in nature is the nucleation of homogeneous flowing systems. The microscopic effects of shear on a nucleating system are still imperfectly understood, although in recent…
We study the solid mechanical properties of several thixotropic suspensions as a function of the shear stress history applied during their flow stoppage and their aging in their solid state. We show that their elastic modulus and yield…
Colloidal gels possess a memory of previous shear events, both steady and oscillatory. This memory, embedded in the microstructure, affects the mechanical response of the gel, and therefore enables precise tuning of the material properties…
The design and development of a parallel plate shear cell for the study of large scale shear flows in granular materials is presented. The parallel plate geometry allows for shear studies without the effects of curvature found in the more…
A model of shear thickening in dense suspensions of Brownian soft sphere colloidal particles is established. It suggests that shear thickening in soft sphere suspensions can be interpreted as a shear induced phase transition. Based on a…
We report measurements of the frequency-dependent shear moduli of aging colloidal systems that evolve from a purely low-viscosity liquid to a predominantly elastic glass or gel. Using microrheology, we measure the local complex shear…
We describe a new phenomenon in models of coalescence and fragmentation, that of gel-shatter cycles. These are dynamical, unforced, stochastic cycles in which slow, approximately deterministic coalescence up to and beyond gelation is…
We study model near-critical polymer gelling systems made of gluten proteins dispersions stabilized at different distances from the gel point. We impose different shear rates and follow the time evolution of the stress. For sufficiently…
We present some recent theory and simulation results addressing the phenomena of colloidal gelation at both high and low volume fractions, in the presence of short-range attractive interactions. We discuss the ability of mode-coupling…
Material failure is ubiquitous, with implications from geology to everyday life and material science. It often involves sudden, unpredictable events, with little or no macroscopically detectable precursors. A deeper understanding of the…
We show that mixing a colloidal gel with larger, non-Brownian grains generates novel flow-switched bistability. Using a combination of confocal microscopy and rheology, we find that prolonged moderate shear results in liquefaction by…
The shear rheology of dense colloidal and granular suspensions is strongly nonlinear, as these materials exhibit shear-thinning and shear-thickening, depending on multiple physical parameters. We numerically study the rheology of a simple…
The elastic properties of a soft matter material can be greatly altered by the presence of solid inclusions whose microscopic properties, such as their size and interactions, can have a dramatic effect. In order to shed light on these…