arXiv subjects

Sébastien Manneville

Publications and source records attributed to Sébastien Manneville.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Nonlinear mechanics of colloidal gels: creep, fatigue and shear-induced yielding

Colloidal gels are formed through the aggregation of attractive particles, whose size ranges from 10~nm to a few micrometers, suspended in a liquid. Such gels are ubiquitous in everyday life applications, from food products to paints or construction materials, in particular thanks to their ability to easily "yield", i.e., to turn from a solid to a liquid under the application of a weak external load. Understanding and controlling the mechanical response of colloidal gels is therefore of prime importance. Depending on the details of the system, however, the resulting gel networks present different microstructural organisations that may lead to widely different mechanical responses. This raises important challenges in fully characterizing yielding and in uncovering the mechanisms of nonlinear response in colloidal gels. In this paper, we distinguish between two classes of colloidal gels showing respectively reversible yielding, where the gel network reforms upon load release, and irreversible yielding, where the network is fully destroyed through fractures and phase separation. This broad, empirical distinction is achieved through rheology and local experiments at a mesoscopic scale, intermediate between the network characteristic size and the sample size. We further discuss how the observables derived from creep and fatigue experiments may be modelled to predict yielding and highlight open questions and future research directions in the domain.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2020

Rheo-acoustic gels: Tuning mechanical and flow properties of colloidal gels with ultrasonic vibrations

Colloidal gels, where nanoscale particles aggregate into an elastic yet fragile network, are at the heart of materials that combine specific optical, electrical and mechanical properties. Tailoring the viscoelastic features of colloidal gels in real-time thanks to an external stimulus currently appears as a major challenge in the design of "smart" soft materials. Here we introduce "rheo-acoustic" gels, a class of materials that are sensitive to ultrasonic vibrations. By using a combination of rheological and structural characterization, we evidence and quantify a strong softening in three widely different colloidal gels submitted to ultrasonic vibrations (with submicron amplitude and frequency 20-500 kHz). This softening is attributed to micron-sized cracks within the gel network that may or may not fully heal once vibrations are turned off depending on the acoustic intensity. Ultrasonic vibrations are further shown to dramatically decrease the gel yield stress and accelerate shear-induced fluidization. Ultrasound-assisted fluidization dynamics appear to be governed by an effective temperature that depends on the acoustic intensity. Our work opens the way to a full control of elastic and flow properties by ultrasonic vibrations as well as to future theoretical and numerical modeling of such rheo-acoustic gels.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Unified theoretical and experimental view on transient shear banding

Dense emulsions, colloidal gels, microgels, and foams all display a solid-like behavior at rest characterized by a yield stress, above which the material flows like a liquid. Such a fluidization transition often consists of long-lasting transient flows that involve shear-banded velocity profiles. The characteristic time for full fluidization, $τ_\text{f}$, has been reported to decay as a power-law of the shear rate $\dot γ$ and of the shear stress $σ$ with respective exponents $α$ and $β$. Strikingly, the ratio of these exponents was empirically observed to coincide with the exponent of the Herschel-Bulkley law that describes the steady-state flow behavior of these complex fluids. Here we introduce a continuum model, based on the minimization of a "free energy", that captures quantitatively all the salient features associated with such \textit{transient} shear-banding. More generally, our results provide a unified theoretical framework for describing the yielding transition and the steady-state flow properties of yield stress fluids.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

X Radiography of Viscous Resuspension

We use X-ray imaging to study viscous resuspension. In a Taylor-Couette geometry, we shear an initially settled layer of spherical glass particles immersed in a Newtonian fluid and measure the local volume fraction profiles. In this configuration, the steady-state profiles are simply related to the normal viscosity defined in the framework of the Suspension Balance Model (SBM). These experiments allow us to examine this fundamental quantity over a wide range of volume fractions, in particular in the semi-dilute regime where experimental data are sorely lacking. Our measurements unambiguously show that the particle stress is quadratic with respect to the volume fraction in the dilute limit. Strikingly, they also reveal a nonlinear dependence on the Shields number, in contrast with previous theoretical and experimental results. This likely points to shear-thinning particle stresses and to a non-Coulomb or velocity-weakening friction between the particles, as also evidenced from shear reversal experiments.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

A mesoscale study of creep in a microgel using the acoustic radiation force

We study the motion of a sphere of diameter 330 $μ$m embedded in a Carbopol microgel under the effect of the acoustic radiation pressure exerted by a focused ultrasonic field. The sphere motion within the microgel is tracked using videomicroscopy and compared to conventional creep and recovery measurements performed with a rheometer. We find that under moderate ultrasonic intensities, the sphere creeps as a power law of time with an exponent $α\simeq 0.2$ that is significantly smaller than the one inferred from global creep measurements below the yield stress of the microgel ($α\simeq 0.4$). Moreover, the sphere relaxation motion after creep and the global recovery are respectively consistent with these two different exponents. By allowing a rheological characterization at the scale of the sphere with forces of the order of micronewtons, the present experiments pave the way for acoustic "mesorheology" which probes volumes and forces intermediate between standard macroscopic rheology and classical microrheology. They also open new questions about the effects of the geometry of the deformation field and of the sphere size and surface properties on the creep behaviour of soft materials.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Irreversible hardening of a colloidal gel under shear: the smart response of natural rubber latex gels

Natural rubber is obtained by processing natural rubber latex, a liquid colloidal suspension that rapidly gels after exudation from the tree. We prepared such gels by acidification, in a large range of particle volume fractions, and investigated their rheological properties. We show that natural rubber latex gels exhibit a unique behavior of irreversible strain hardening: when subjected to a large enough strain, the elastic modulus increases irreversibly. Hardening proceeds over a large range of deformations in such a way that the material maintains an elastic modulus close to, or slightly higher than the imposed shear stress. Local displacements inside the gel are investigated by ultrasound imaging coupled to oscillatory rheometry, together with a Fourier decomposition of the oscillatory response of the material during hardening. Our observations suggest that hardening is associated with irreversible local rearrangements of the fractal structure, which occur homogeneously throughout the sample.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2018

Uncovering instabilities in the spatiotemporal dynamics of a shear-thickening cornstarch suspension

Recent theories predict that discontinuous shear-thickening (DST) involves an instability, the nature of which remains elusive. Here, we explore unsteady dynamics in a dense cornstarch suspension by coupling long rheological measurements under constant shear stresses to ultrasound imaging. We demonstrate that unsteadiness in DST results from localized bands that travel along the vorticity direction with a specific signature on the global shear rate response. These propagating events coexist with quiescent phases for stresses slightly above DST onset, resulting in intermittent, turbulent-like dynamics. Deeper into DST, events proliferate, leading to simpler, Gaussian dynamics. We interpret our results in terms of unstable vorticity bands as inferred from recent model and numerical simulations.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Measurement of the acoustic radiation force on a sphere embedded in a soft solid

The acoustic radiation force exerted on a small sphere located at the focus of an ultrasonic beam is measured in a soft gel. It is proved to evolve quadratically with the local amplitude of the acoustic field. Strong oscillations of the local pressure are observed and attributed to an acoustic Fabry-P{é}rot effect between the ultrasonic emitter and the sphere. Taking this effect into account with a simple model, a quantitative link between the radiation force and the acoustic pressure is proposed and compared to theoretical predictions in the absence of dissipation. The discrepancy between experiment and theory suggests that dissipative effects should be taken into account for fully modeling the observations.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Yield Stress Materials in Soft Condensed Matter

We present a comprehensive review of the physical behavior of yield stress materials in soft condensed matter, which encompass a broad range of materials from colloidal assemblies and gels to emulsions and non-Brownian suspensions. All these disordered materials display a nonlinear flow behavior in response to external mechanical forces, due to the existence of a finite force threshold for flow to occur: the yield stress. We discuss both the physical origin and rheological consequences associated with this nonlinear behavior, and give an overview of experimental techniques available to measure the yield stress. We discuss recent progress concerning a microscopic theoretical description of the flow dynamics of yield stress materials, emphasizing in particular the role played by relaxation time scales, the interplay between shear flow and aging behavior, the existence of inhomogeneous shear flows and shear bands, wall slip, and non-local effects in confined geometries.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Understanding rheological hysteresis in soft glassy materials

Motivated by recent experimental studies of rheological hysteresis in soft glassy materials, we study numerically strain rate sweeps in simple yield stress fluids and viscosity bifurcating yield stress fluids. Our simulations of downward followed by upward strain rate sweeps, performed within fluidity models and the soft glassy rheology model, successfully capture the experimentally observed monotonic decrease of the area of the rheological hysteresis loop with sweep time in simple yield stress fluids, and the bell shaped dependence of hysteresis loop area on sweep time in viscosity bifurcating fluids. We provide arguments explaining these two different functional forms in terms of differing tendencies of simple and viscosity bifurcating fluids to form shear bands during the sweeps, and show that the banding behaviour captured by our simulations indeed agrees with that reported experimentally. We also discuss the difference in hysteresis behaviour between inelastic and viscoelastic fluids. Our simulations qualitatively agree with the experimental data discussed here for four different soft glassy materials.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2017

Nonlinear viscoelasticity and generalized failure criterion for polymer gels

Polymer gels behave as soft viscoelastic solids and exhibit a generic nonlinear mechanical response characterized by pronounced stiffening prior to irreversible failure, most often through macroscopic fractures. Here, we aim at capturing the latter scenario for a protein gel using a nonlinear integral constitutive equation built upon ($i$) the linear viscoelastic response of the gel, here well described by a power-law relaxation modulus, and ($ii$) the nonlinear viscoelastic properties of the gel, encoded into a "damping function". Such formalism predicts quantitatively the gel mechanical response to a shear start-up experiment, up to the onset of macroscopic failure. Moreover, as the gel failure involves the irreversible growth of macroscopic cracks, we couple the latter stress response with Bailey's durability criterion for brittle solids in order to predict the critical values of the stress $σ_c$ and strain $γ_c$ at the failure point, and how they scale with the applied shear rate. The excellent agreement between theory and experiments suggests that the crack growth in this soft viscoelastic gel is a Markovian process, and that Baileys' criterion extends well beyond hard materials such as metals, glasses, or minerals.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Simultaneous concentration and velocity maps in particle suspensions under shear from rheo-ultrasonic imaging

We extend a previously developed ultrafast ultrasonic technique [Gallot et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 84, 045107 (2013)] to concentration field measurements in non-Brownian particle suspensions under shear. The technique provides access to time-resolved concentration maps within the gap of a Taylor-Couette cell simultaneously to local velocity measurements and standard rheological characterization. Benchmark experiments in homogeneous particle suspensions are used to calibrate the system. We then image heterogeneous concentration fields that result from centrifugation effects, from the classical Taylor-Couette instability and from sedimentation or shear-induced resuspension.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Ion pairing controls rheological properties of "processionary" polyelectrolyte hydrogels

We demonstrated recently that polyelectrolytes with cationic moieties along the chain and a single anionic head are able to form physical hydrogels due to the reversible nature of the head-to-body ionic bond. Here we generate a variety of such polyelectrolytes with various cationic moieties and counterion combinations starting from a common polymeric platform. We show that the rheological properties (shear modulus, critical strain) of the final hydrogels can be modulated over three orders of magnitude depending on the cation/anion pair. Our data fit remarkably well within a scaling model involving a supramolecular head-to-tail single file between cross-links, akin to the behaviour of pine-processionary caterpillar. This model allows the quantitative measure of the amount of counterion condensation from standard rheology procedure.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Local Oscillatory Rheology from Echography

Local Oscillatory Rheology from Echography (LORE) consists in a traditional rheology experiment synchronized with high-frequency ultrasonic imaging which gives access to the local material response to oscillatory shear. Besides classical global rheological quantities, this method provides quantitative time-resolved information on the local displacement across the entire gap of the rheometer. From the local displacement response, we compute and decompose the local strain in its Fourier components and measure the spatially-resolved viscoelastic moduli. After benchmarking our method on homogeneous Newtonian fluids and soft solids, we demonstrate that this technique is well suited to characterize spatially heterogeneous samples, wall slip, and the emergence of nonlinearity under large amplitude oscillatory stress in soft materials.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Avalanche-like fluidization of a non-Brownian particle gel

We report on the fluidization dynamics of an attractive gel composed of non-Brownian particles made of fused silica colloids. Extensive rheology coupled to ultrasonic velocimetry allows us to characterize the global stress response together with the local dynamics of the gel during shear startup experiments. In practice, after being rejuvenated by a preshear, the gel is left to age during a time $t_w$ before being submitted to a constant shear rate $\dot γ$. We investigate in detail the effects of both $t_w$ and $\dot γ$ on the fluidization dynamics and build a detailed state diagram of the gel response to shear startup flows. The gel may either display transient shear banding towards complete fluidization, or steady-state shear banding. In the former case, we unravel that the progressive fluidization occurs by successive steps that appear as peaks on the global stress relaxation signal. Flow imaging reveals that the shear band grows up to complete fluidization of the material by sudden avalanche-like events which are distributed heterogeneously along the vorticity direction and correlated to large peaks in the slip velocity at the moving wall. These features are robust over a wide range of values of $t_w$ and $\dot γ$, although the very details of the fluidization scenario vary with $\dot γ$. Finally, the critical shear rate $\dot γ^*$ that separates steady-state shear-banding from steady-state homogeneous flow depends on the width on the shear cell and exhibits a nonlinear dependence with $t_w$. Our work brings about valuable experimental data on transient flows of attractive dispersions, highlighting the subtle interplay between shear, wall slip and aging which modeling constitutes a major challenge that has not been met yet.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

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 $σ$ 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 $v_s\proptoσ^p$ 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 $σ-σ_c$, where $σ_c$ 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 $ϕ$ on both sides of the jamming point and that the exponent $p$ increases continuously with $ϕ$, 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.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Shear Banding of Complex Fluids

Even in simple geometries many complex fluids display non-trivial flow fields, with regions where shear is concentrated. The possibility for such shear banding has been known since several decades, but the recent years have seen an upsurge of studies offering an ever more precise understanding of the phenomenon. The development of new techniques to probe the flow on multiple scales and 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 on soft glassy materials, and highlight their similarities and disparities.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Mediating gel formation from structurally controlled poly(electrolytes) through multiple "head-to-body" electrostatic interactions

Tuning the chain-end functionality of a short-chain cationic homopolymer, owing to the nature of the initiator used in the ATRP polymerisation step, can be used to mediate the formation of a gel of this poly(electrolyte) in water. While a neutral end group gives a solution of low viscosity, a highly homogeneous gel is obtained with a phosphonate anionic moiety, as characterized by rheometry and diffusion NMR. This novel type of supramolecular control over poly(electrolytic) gel formation could find potential use in a variety of applications in the field of electroactive materials.

cond-mat.soft↗