S-shaped flow curves of shear thickening suspensions: Direct observation of frictional rheology

We study the rheological behavior of concentrated granular suspensions of simple spherical particles. Under controlled stress, the system exhibits an S-shaped flow curve (stress vs. shear rate) with a negative slope in between the low-viscosity Newtonian regime and the shear thickened regime. Under controlled shear rate, a discontinuous transition between the two states is observed. Stress visualization experiments with a novel fluorescent probe suggest that friction is at the origin of shear thickening. Stress visualization shows that the stress in the system remains homogeneous (no shear banding) if a stress is imposed that is intermediate between the high and low-stress branches. The S-shaped shear thickening is then due to the discontinuous formation of a frictional force network between particles upon increasing the stress.Comment: 5 pages + 6 figure

Normal stresses in semiflexible polymer hydrogels

Biopolymer gels such as fibrin and collagen networks are known to develop tensile axial stress when subject to torsion. This negative normal stress is opposite to the classical Poynting effect observed for most elastic solids including synthetic polymer gels, where torsion provokes a positive normal stress. As recently shown, this anomalous behavior in fibrin gels depends on the open, porous network structure of biopolymer gels, which facilitates interstitial fluid flow during shear and can be described by a phenomenological two-fluid model with viscous coupling between network and solvent. Here we extend this model and develop a microscopic model for the individual diagonal components of the stress tensor that determine the axial response of semi-flexible polymer hydrogels. This microscopic model predicts that the magnitude of these stress components depends inversely on the characteristic strain for the onset of nonlinear shear stress, which we confirm experimentally by shear rheometry on fibrin gels. Moreover, our model predicts a transient behavior of the normal stress, which is in excellent agreement with the full time-dependent normal stress we measure.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Porosity governs normal stresses in polymer gels

When sheared, most elastic solids such as metals, rubbers and polymer hydrogels dilate in the direction perpendicular to the shear plane. This well-known behaviour known as the Poynting effect is characterized by a positive normal stress [1]. Surprisingly, biopolymer gels made of fibrous proteins such as fibrin and collagen and many tissues exhibit the opposite effect, contracting under shear and displaying a negative normal stress [2, 3]. Here we show that this anomalous behaviour originates from the open network structure of biopolymer gels, which facilitates interstitial fluid flow during shear. Using fibrin networks with a controllable pore size as a model system, we show that the normal stress response to an applied shear is positive at short times, but decreases to negative values with a characteristic time scale set by pore size. Using a two-fluid model, we develop a quantitative theory that unifies the opposite behaviours encountered in synthetic and biopolymer gels. Synthetic polymer gels are impermeable to solvent flow and thus effectively incompressible at typical experimental time scales, whereas biopolymer gels are effectively compressible. Our findings suggest a new route to tailor elastic instabilities such as the die swell effect that often hamper processing of polymer materials and furthermore show that poroelastic effects play a much more important role in the mechanical properties of cells and tissues than previously anticipated

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

The yield normal stress

Normal stresses in complex fluids lead to new flow phenomena because they can be comparable to, or even larger than, the shear stress. In addition, they are of paramount importance for formulating and testing constitutive equations for predicting nonviscometric flow behavior. Very little attention has thus far been paid to the normal stresses of yield stress fluids, which are difficult to measure. We report the first systematic study of the first and second normal stress differences in both continuous and slow oscillatory shear of three model nonthixotropic yield stress fluids, with N1 > 0 and N2 < 0. We show that both normal stress differences are quadratic functions of the shear stress both above and below the shear yield stress, leading to the existence of a yield normal stress. However, the contribution of the normal stresses to the von Mises yield criterion for these materials is small

Water migration through fat-based semi solid heterogeneous materials

Water migration through heterogeneous soft materials is central to many applications including oil recovery and consumer product stability of foods and cosmetics. This slow water transport affects all material properties such as mechanical, optical and electrical, but its understanding and modelling remains challenging due to complex wetting and diffusion processes across the heterogeneous material. Here, we study experimentally the penetration of water through a soft composite with hydrophobic (fat) and hydrophilic (salt) components. Conductivity measurements indicate the emergence of a percolating water network above critical water and salt volume fractions. This is corroborated by mechanical measurements revealing a concomitant stiffening of the material due to proliferating water bridges. Simulations of water absorption at spherical inclusions confirm this scenario and show the underlying cluster growth and percolation process