Normal force controlled rheology applied to agar gelation

A wide range of thermoreversible gels are prepared by cooling down to ambient temperature hot aqueous polymer solutions. During the sol-gel transition, such materials may experience a volume contraction which is traditionally overlooked as rheological measurements are usually performed in geometries of constant volume. In this article, we revisit the formation of 1.5\% wt. agar gels through a series of benchmark rheological experiments performed with a plate-plate geometry. We demonstrate on that particular gel of polysaccharides that the contraction associated with the sol/gel transition cannot be neglected. Indeed, imposing a constant gap width during the gelation results in the strain hardening of the sample, as evidenced by the large negative normal force that develops. Such hardening leads to the slow drift in time of the gel elastic modulus $G'$ towards ever larger values, and thus to an erroneous estimate of $G'$. As an alternative, we show that imposing a constant normal force equals to zero during the gelation, instead of a constant gap width, suppresses the hardening as the decrease of the gap compensates for the sample contraction. Using normal force controlled rheology, we then investigate the impact of thermal history on 1.5\% wt. agar gels. We show that neither the value of the cooling rate, nor the introduction of a constant temperature stage during the cooling process influence the gel elastic properties. Instead, $G'$ only depends on the terminal temperature reached at the end of the cooling ramp, as confirmed by direct imaging of the gel microstructure by cryoelectron microscopy. The present work offers an extensive review of the technical difficulties associated with the rheology of hydrogels and paves the way for a systematic use of normal force controlled rheology to monitor non-isochoric processes.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures - accepted for publication in Journal of Rheolog

Invited review: Effect of temperature on a granular pile

As a fragile construction, a granular pile is very sensitive to minute external perturbations. In particular, it is now well established that a granular assembly is sensitive to variations of temperature. Such variations can produce localized rearrangements as well as global static avalanches inside a pile. In this review, we sum up the various observations that have been made concerning the effect of temperature on a granular assembly. In particular, we dwell on the way controlled variations of temperature have been employed to generate the compaction of a granular pile. After laying emphasis on the key features of this compaction process, we compare it to the classic vibration-induced compaction. Finally, we also review other granular systems in a large sense, from microscopic (jammed multilamellar vesicles) to macroscopic scales (stone heave phenomenon linked to freezing and thawing of soils) for which periodic variations of temperature could play a key role in the dynamics at stake.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, Commentary from the reviewer available in Papers in Physic

Wall slip across the jamming transition of soft thermoresponsive particles

Flows of suspensions are often affected by wall slip, that is the fluid velocity $v_{f}$ in the vicinity of a boundary differs from the wall velocity $v_{w}$ due to the presence of a lubrication layer. While the slip velocity $v_s=\vert v_{f}-v_{w}\vert$ robustly scales linearly with the stress $\sigma$ at the wall in dilute suspensions, there is no consensus regarding denser suspensions that are sheared in the bulk, for which slip velocities have been reported to scale as a $v_s\propto\sigma^p$ with exponents $p$ inconsistently ranging between 0 and 2. Here we focus on a suspension of soft thermoresponsive particles and show that $v_s$ actually scales as a power law of the viscous stress $\sigma-\sigma_c$, where $\sigma_c$ denotes the yield stress of the bulk material. By tuning the temperature across the jamming transition, we further demonstrate that this scaling holds true over a large range of packing fractions $\phi$ on both sides of the jamming point and that the exponent $p$ increases continuously with $\phi$, from $p=1$ in the case of dilute suspensions to $p=2$ for jammed assemblies. These results allow us to successfully revisit inconsistent data from the literature and paves the way for a continuous description of wall slip above and below jamming.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures - accepted for publication as a Rapid Communication in Phys. Rev.

Transient Shear Banding in a Simple Yield Stress Fluid

We report a large set of experimental data which demonstrates that a simple yield stress fluid, i.e. which does not present aging or thixotropy, exhibits transient shear banding before reaching a steady state characterized by a homogeneous, linear velocity profile. The duration of the transient regime decreases as a power law with the applied shear rate $\dot\gamma$. This power law behavior, observed here in carbopol dispersions, does not depend on the gap width and on the boundary conditions for a given sample preparation. For $\dot\gamma\lesssim 0.1$ s$^{-1}$, heterogeneous flows could be observed for as long as 10$^5$ s. These local dynamics account for the ultraslow stress relaxation observed at low shear rates.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Calibration of force actuators on an adaptive secondary prototype

In the context of the Large Binocular Telescope project, we present the results of force actuator calibrations performed on an adaptive secondary prototype called P45, a thin deformable glass with magnets glued onto its back. Electromagnetic actuators, controlled in a closed loop with a system of internal metrology based on capacitive sensors, continuously deform its shape to correct the distortions of the wavefront. Calibrations of the force actuators are needed because of the differences between driven forces and measured forces. We describe the calibration procedures and the results, obtained with errors of less than 1.5%.Comment: 7 page

Yielding dynamics of a Herschel-Bulkley fluid: a critical-like fluidization behaviour

The shear-induced fluidization of a carbopol microgel is investigated during long start-up experiments using combined rheology and velocimetry in Couette cells of varying gap widths and boundary conditions. As already described in [Divoux et al., {\it Phys. Rev. Lett.}, 2010, {\bf 104}, 208301], we show that the fluidization process of this simple yield stress fluid involves a transient shear-banding regime whose duration $\tau_f$ decreases as a power law of the applied shear rate \gp. Here we go one step further by an exhaustive investigation of the influence of the shearing geometry through the gap width $e$ and the boundary conditions. While slip conditions at the walls seem to have a negligible influence on the fluidization time $\tau_f$, different fluidization processes are observed depending on \gp and $e$: the shear band remains almost stationary for several hours at low shear rates or small gap widths before strong fluctuations lead to a homogeneous flow, whereas at larger values of \gp or $e$, the transient shear band is seen to invade the whole gap in a much smoother way. Still, the power-law behaviour appears as very robust and hints to critical-like dynamics. To further discuss these results, we propose (i) a qualitative scenario to explain the induction-like period that precedes full fluidization and (ii) an analogy with critical phenomena that naturally leads to the observed power laws if one assumes that the yield point is the critical point of an underlying out-of-equilibrium phase transition.Comment: 16 pages, 14+2 figures, published in Soft Matte

Creep motion of a granular pile induced by thermal cycling

We report a time-resolved study of the dynamics associated with the slow compaction of a granular column submitted to thermal cycles. The column height displays a complex behavior: for a large amplitude of the temperature cycles, the granular column settles continuously, experiencing a small settling at each cycle; By contrast, for small-enough amplitude, the column exhibits a discontinuous and intermittent activity: successive collapses are separated by quiescent periods whose duration is exponentially distributed. We then discuss potential mechanisms which would account for both the compaction and the transition at finite amplitude.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters (05sep08