Conductivity measurements in a shear-banding wormlike micellar system

Shear banding in the cetylpyridinium chloride/sodium salicylate micellar system is investigated using electrical conductivity measurements parallel to the velocity and parallel to the vorticity in a cylindrical Couette cell. The measurements show that the conductivity parallel to the velocity (vorticity) increases (decreases) monotonically with applied shear rate. The shear-induced anisotropy is over one order of magnitude lower than the anisotropy of the N(c) nematic phase. The steady-state conductivity measurements indicate that the anisotropy of the shear induced low-viscosity (high shear rate) phase is not significantly larger than the anisotropy of the high viscosity (low shear rate) phase. We estimate that the micelles in the shear induced low viscosity band are relatively short, with a characteristic length to diameter ratio of 5-15. The relaxation behavior following the onset of shear is markedly different above and below the first critical value γ1, in agreement with results obtained by other methods. The transient measurements show that the overall anisotropy of the sample decreases as the steady state is approached, i.e., the micellar length/the degree of order decrease.