No Arabic abstract
We study the pressure-driven flow of concentrated colloids confined in glass micro-channels at the single particle level using fast confocal microscopy. For channel to particle size ratios $a/bar{D} lesssim 30$, the flow rate of the suspended particles shows fluctuations. These turn into regular oscillations for higher confinements ($a/bar{D} simeq 20$). We present evidence to link these oscillations with the relative flow of solvent and particles (permeation) and the effect of confinement on shear thickening.
We present a comprehensive study of the slip and flow of concentrated colloidal suspensions using cone-plate rheometry and simultaneous confocal imaging. In the colloidal glass regime, for smooth, non-stick walls, the solid nature of the suspension causes a transition in the rheology from Herschel-Bulkley (HB) bulk flow behavior at large stress to a Bingham-like slip behavior at low stress, which is suppressed for sufficient colloid-wall attraction or colloid-scale wall roughness. Visualization shows how the slip-shear transition depends on gap size and the boundary conditions at both walls and that partial slip persist well above the yield stress. A phenomenological model, incorporating the Bingham slip law and HB bulk flow, fully accounts for the behavior. Microscopically, the Bingham law is related to a thin (sub-colloidal) lubrication layer at the wall, giving rise to a characteristic dependence of slip parameters on particle size and concentration. We relate this to the suspensions osmotic pressure and yield stress and also analyze the influence of van der Waals interaction. For the largest concentrations, we observe non-uniform flow around the yield stress, in line with recent work on bulk shear-banding of concentrated pastes. We also describe residual slip in concentrated liquid suspensions, where the vanishing yield stress causes coexistence of (weak) slip and bulk shear flow for all measured rates.
We image the flow of a nearly random close packed, hard-sphere colloidal suspension (a `paste) in a square capillary using confocal microscopy. The flow consists of a `plug in the center while shear occurs localized adjacent to the channel walls, reminiscent of yield-stress fluid behavior. However, the observed scaling of the velocity profiles with the flow rate strongly contrasts yield-stress fluid predictions. Instead, the velocity profiles can be captured by a theory of stress fluctuations originally developed for chute flow of dry granular media. We verified this behavior both for smooth and rough boundary conditions.
We review recent advances in imaging the flow of concentrated suspensions, focussing on the use of confocal microscopy to obtain time-resolved information on the single-particle level in these systems. After motivating the need for quantitative (confocal) imaging in suspension rheology, we briefly describe the particles, sample environments, microscopy tools and analysis algorithms needed to perform this kind of experiments. The second part of the review focusses on microscopic aspects of the flow of concentrated model hard-sphere-like suspensions, and the relation to non-linear rheological phenomena such as yielding, shear localization, wall slip and shear-induced ordering. Both Brownian and non-Brownian systems will be described. We show how quantitative imaging can improve our understanding of the connection between microscopic dynamics and bulk flow.
Granular fronts are a common yet unexplained phenomenon emerging during the gravity driven free-surface flow of concentrated suspensions. They are usually believed to be the result of fluid convection in combination with particle size segregation. However, suspensions composed of uniformly sized particles also develop a granular front. Within a large rotating drum, a stationary recirculating avalanche is generated. The flowing material is a mixture of a visco-plastic fluid obtained from a kaolin-water dispersion, with spherical ceramic particles denser than the fluid. The goal is to mimic the composition of many common granular-fluid materials, like fresh concrete or debris flow. In these materials, granular and fluid phases have the natural tendency to segregate due to particle settling. However, through the shearing caused by the rotation of the drum, a reorganization of the phases is induced, leading to the formation of a granular front. By tuning the material properties and the drum velocity, it is possible to control this phenomenon. The setting is reproduced in a numerical environment, where the fluid is solved by a Lattice-Boltzmann Method, and the particles are explicitly represented using the Discrete Element Method. The simulations confirm the findings of the experiments, and provide insight into the internal mechanisms. Comparing the time-scale of particle settling with the one of particle recirculation, a non-dimensional number is defined, and is found to be effective in predicting the formation of a granular front.
Diffusion in bidisperse Brownian hard-sphere suspensions is studied by Stokesian Dynamics (SD) computer simulations and a semi-analytical theoretical scheme for colloidal short-time dynamics, based on Beenakker and Mazurs method [Physica 120A, 388 (1983) & 126A, 349 (1984)]. Two species of hard spheres are suspended in an overdamped viscous solvent that mediates the salient hydrodynamic interactions among all particles. In a comprehensive parameter scan that covers various packing fractions and suspension compositions, we employ numerically accurate SD simulations to compute the initial diffusive relaxation of density modulations at the Brownian time scale, quantified by the partial hydrodynamic functions. A revised version of Beenakker and Mazurs $deltagamma$-scheme for monodisperse suspensions is found to exhibit surprisingly good accuracy, when simple rescaling laws are invoked in its application to mixtures. The so-modified $deltagamma$ scheme predicts hydrodynamic functions in very good agreement with our SD simulation results, for all densities from the very dilute limit up to packing fractions as high as $40%$.