No Arabic abstract
As 2D materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and 2D polymers become more prevalent, solution processing and colloidal-state properties are being exploited to create advanced and functional materials. However, our understanding of the fundamental behavior of 2D sheets and membranes in fluid flow is still lacking. In this work, we perform numerical simulations of athermal semiflexible sheets with hydrodynamic interactions in shear flow. For sheets initially oriented in the flow-gradient plane, we find buckling instabilities of different mode numbers that vary with bending stiffness and can be understood with a quasi-static model of elasticity. For different initial orientations, chaotic tumbling trajectories are observed. Notably, we find that sheets fold or crumple before tumbling but do not stretch again upon applying greater shear.
The tumbling dynamics of individual polymers in semidilute solution is studied by large-scale non-equilibrium mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. We find that the tumbling time is equal to the non-equilibrium relaxation time of the polymer end-to-end distance along the flow direction and strongly depends on concentration. In addition, the normalized tumbling frequency as well as the widths of the alignment distribution functions for a given concentration-dependent Weissenberg number exhibit a weak concentration dependence in the cross-over regime from a dilute to a semidilute solution. For semidilute solutions a universal behavior is obtained. This is a consequence of screening of hydrodynamic interactions at polymer concentrations exceeding the overlap concentration.
The discontinuous shear thickening (DST) of dense suspensions is a remarkable phenomenon in which the viscosity can increase by several orders of magnitude at a critical shear rate. It has the appearance of a first order phase transition between two hypothetical states that we have recently identified as Stokes flows with lubricated or frictional contacts, respectively. Here we extend the analogy further by means of novel stress-controlled simulations and show the existence of a non-monotonic steady-state flow curve analogous to a non-monotonic equation of state. While we associate DST with an S-shaped flow curve, at volume fractions above the shear jamming transition the frictional state loses flowability and the flow curve reduces to an arch, permitting the system to flow only at small stresses. Whereas a thermodynamic transition leads to phase separation in the coexistence region, we observe a uniform shear flow all along the thickening transition. A stability analysis suggests that uniform shear may be mechanically stable for the small Reynolds numbers and system sizes in a rheometer.
A general framework for Maxwell-Oldroyd type differential constitutive models is examined, in which an unspecified nonlinear function of the stress and rate-of-deformation tensors is incorporated into the well-known corotational version of the Jeffreys model discussed by Oldroyd. For medium amplitude simple shear deformations, the recently developed mathematical framework of medium amplitude parallel superposition (MAPS) rheology reveals that this generalized nonlinear Maxwell model can produce only a limited number of distinct signatures, which combine linearly in a well-posed basis expansion for the third order complex viscosity. This basis expansion represents a library of MAPS signatures for distinct constitutive models that are contained within the generalized nonlinear Maxwell model. We describe a framework for quantitative model identification using this basis expansion, and discuss its limitations in distinguishing distinct nonlinear features of the underlying constitutive models from medium amplitude shear stress data. The leading order contributions to the normal stress differences are also considered, revealing that only the second normal stress difference provides distinct information about the weakly nonlinear response space of the model. After briefly considering the conditions for time-strain separability within the generalized nonlinear Maxwell model, we apply the basis expansion of the third order complex viscosity to derive the medium amplitude signatures of the model in specific shear deformation protocols. Finally, we use these signatures for estimation of model parameters from rheological data obtained by these different deformation protocols, revealing that three-tone oscillatory shear deformations produce data that is readily able to distinguish all features of the medium amplitude, simple shear response space of this generalized class of constitutive models.
We re-examine previous observations of folding kinetics of compressed lipid monolayers in light of the accepted mechanical buckling mechanism recently proposed [L. Pocivavsek et al., Soft Matter, 2008, 4, 2019]. Using simple models, we set conservative limits on a) the energy released in the mechanical buckling process and b) the kinetic energy entailed by the observed folding motion. These limits imply a kinetic energy at least thirty times greater than the energy supplied by the buckling instability. We discuss possible extensions of the accepted picture that might resolve this discrepancy.
The Boltzmann equation for inelastic Maxwell models is considered to determine the velocity moments through fourth degree in the simple shear flow state. First, the rheological properties (which are related to the second-degree velocity moments) are {em exactly} evaluated in terms of the coefficient of restitution $alpha$ and the (reduced) shear rate $a^*$. For a given value of $alpha$, the above transport properties decrease with increasing shear rate. Moreover, as expected, the third-degree and the asymmetric fourth-degree moments vanish in the long time limit when they are scaled with the thermal speed. On the other hand, as in the case of elastic collisions, our results show that, for a given value of $alpha$, the scaled symmetric fourth-degree moments diverge in time for shear rates larger than a certain critical value $a_c^*(alpha)$ which decreases with increasing dissipation. The explicit shear-rate dependence of the fourth-degree moments below this critical value is also obtained.