Sébastien Manneville

Recent experimental probes of shear banding

Recent experimental techniques used to investigate shear banding are reviewed. After recalling the rheological signature of shear-banded flows, we summarize the various tools for measuring locally the microstructure and the velocity field under shear. Local velocity measurements using dynamic light scattering and ultrasound are emphasized. A few results are extracted from current works to illustrate open questions and directions for future research.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of wormlike micelles under shear

Velocity profiles in a wormlike micelle solution (cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide in D2O) are recorded using ultrasound every 2 s during a startup experiment into the shear-banding regime. The stress relaxation occurs over more than 6 h and corresponds to the very slow nucleation and growth of the high-shear band. Moreover, oscillations of the interface position with a period of about 50 s are observed during the growth process. Strong wall slip, metastable states, and transient nucleation of three-band flows are also reported and discussed in light of previous experiments and theoretical models.

From stress-induced fluidization processes to Herschel-Bulkley behaviour in simple yield stress fluids

Stress-induced fluidization of a simple yield stress fluid, namely a carbopol microgel, is addressed through extensive rheological measurements coupled to simultaneous temporally and spatially resolved velocimetry. These combined measurements allow us to rule out any bulk fracture-like scenario during the fluidization process such as that suggested in [Caton et al., Rheol Acta, 2008, 47, 601–607]. On the contrary, we observe that the transient regime from solid-like to liquid-like behaviour under a constant shear stress σ successively involves creep deformation, total wall slip, and shear banding before a homogeneous steady state is reached. Interestingly, the total duration τf of this fluidization process scales as τf ∝ 1/(σ − σc)β, where σc stands for the yield stress of the microgel, and β is an exponent which only depends on the microgel properties and not on the gap width or on the boundary conditions. Together with recent experiments under imposed shear rate [Divoux et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2010, 104, 208301], this scaling law suggests a route to rationalize the phenomenological Herschel-Bulkley (HB) power-law classically used to describe the steady-state rheology of simple yield stress fluids. In particular, we show that the steady-state HB exponent appears as the ratio of the two fluidization exponents extracted separately from the transient fluidization processes respectively under controlled shear rate and under controlled shear stress.

Shear Banding of Complex Fluids

Even in simple geometries, many complex fluids display nontrivial flow fields, with regions where shear is concentrated. The possibility for such shear banding has been known for several decades, but in recent years, we have seen an upsurge in studies offering an ever-more precise understanding of the phenomenon. The development of new techniques to probe the flow on multiple scales with increasing spatial and temporal resolution has opened the possibility for a synthesis of the many phenomena that could only have been thought of separately before. In this review, we bring together recent research on shear banding in polymeric and soft glassy materials and highlight their similarities and disparities.

Heterogeneous yielding dynamics in a colloidal gel

Attractive colloidal gels display a solid-to-fluid transition as shear stresses above the yield stress are applied. This shear-induced transition is involved in virtually any application of colloidal gels. It is also crucial for controlling material properties. Still, the yielding transition is far from understood, mainly because rheological measurements are spatially averaged over the whole sample. We use high-frequency ultrasound during creep and oscillatory shear experiments to observe the local dynamics of opaque attractive colloidal gels. The transition proceeds from the cell walls and heterogeneously fluidizes the whole sample with a characteristic time that exponentially decreases with the applied stress. The present results reveal the importance of activated processes for the gel dynamics and raise a number of open questions in the attempt to better understand the yielding transition.

Rheological Hysteresis in Soft Glassy Materials

The nonlinear rheology of a soft glassy material is captured by its constitutive relation, shear stress versus shear rate, which is most generally obtained by sweeping up or down the shear rate over a finite temporal window. For a huge amount of complex fluids, the up and down sweeps do not superimpose and define a rheological hysteresis loop. By means of extensive rheometry coupled to time-resolved velocimetry, we unravel the local scenario involved in rheological hysteresis for various types of well-studied soft materials. We introduce two observables that quantify the hysteresis in macroscopic rheology and local velocimetry, respectively, as a function of the sweep rate δt(-1). Strikingly, both observables present a robust maximum with δt, which defines a single material-dependent time scale that grows continuously from vanishingly small values in simple yield stress fluids to large values for strongly time-dependent materials. In line with recent theoretical arguments, these experimental results hint at a universal time scale-based framework for soft glassy materials, where inhomogeneous flows characterized by shear bands and/or pluglike flow play a central role.

Stress overshoot in a simple yield stress fluid: An extensive study combining rheology and velocimetry

We report a large amount of experimental data on the stress overshoot phenomenon which takes place during start-up shear flows in a simple yield stress fluid, namely a carbopol microgel. A combination of classical rheological measurements and ultrasonic velocimetry makes it possible to get physical insights on the transient dynamics of both the stress σ(t) and the velocity field across the gap of a rough cylindrical Couette cell during the start-up of shear under an applied shear rate . (i) At small strains (γ w. Finally, by changing the boundary conditions from rough to smooth, we show that there exists a critical shear rate s fixed by the wall surface roughness below which slip at both walls allows for faster stress relaxation and for stress fluctuations strongly reminiscent of stick-slip. Interestingly, the value of s is observed to coincide with the shear rate below which the flow curve displays a kink attributed to wall slip.

Influence of boundary conditions on yielding in a soft glassy material.

The yielding behavior of a sheared Laponite suspension is investigated within a 1 mm gap under two different boundary conditions. No-slip conditions, ensured by using rough walls, lead to shear localization as already reported in various soft glassy materials. When apparent wall slip is allowed using a smooth geometry, the sample breaks up into macroscopic solid pieces that get slowly eroded by the surrounding fluidized material up to the point where the whole sample is fluid. Such a drastic effect of boundary conditions on yielding suggests the existence of some macroscopic characteristic length that could be connected to cooperativity effects in jammed materials under shear.

Shear-induced fragmentation of laponite suspensions

Simultaneous rheological and velocity profile measurements are performed in a smooth Couette geometry on laponite suspensions seeded with glass microspheres and undergoing the shear-induced solid-to-fluid (or yielding) transition. Under these slippery boundary conditions, a rich temporal behaviour is uncovered, in which shear localization is observed at short times, which rapidly gives way to a highly heterogeneous flow, characterized by intermittent switching from plug-like flow to linear velocity profiles. Such a temporal behaviour is linked to the fragmentation of the initially solid sample into blocks separated by fluidized regions. These solid pieces get progressively eroded over timescales ranging from a few minutes to several hours depending on the applied shear rate . The steady-state is characterized by a homogeneous flow with almost negligible wall slip. The characteristic timescale for erosion is shown to diverge below some critical shear rate * and to scale as ( − *)−n with n ≃ 2 above *. A tentative model for erosion is discussed together with open questions raised by the present results.

Shear-banding in surfactant wormlike micelles: elastic instabilities and wall slip

We report on the flow dynamics of a wormlike micellar system (CPCl/NaSal/brine) undergoing a shear-banding transition using a combination of global rheology, 1D ultrasonic velocimetry and 2D optical visualisation. The different measurements being performed in a single Taylor–Couette geometry, we find a strong correlation between the induced turbid band observed optically and the high shear rate band. This correspondence reveals that fluctuations observed in the 1D velocity profiles are related to elastic instabilities triggered in the high shear rate band: 3D coherent (laminar) flow and 3D turbulent flow successively develop as the applied shear rate is increased. The specific characteristics of the resulting complex dynamics are found to depend on subtle changes in the sample, due to temporary light exposure. The CPCl molecules exhibit a photochemistry mainly influenced by the photo-induced cleavage of the pyridine ring that yields an unstable aldehyde enamine, which further decays by thermally activated processes. The products of the reaction possibly build up a lubrication layer responsible for pathological flow dynamics. Overall, our results bridge the gap between previous independent optical and local velocity measurements and explain most of the observed fluctuations in terms of a sequence of elastic instabilities which turns out to be widespread among semidilute wormlike micellar systems.