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Published on: May 20, 2014
Shear-induced slab-like domains in a directed percolated colloidal gel
Matthias Kohl1, Michael Schmiedeberg2
1Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, D-40225, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Abstract:
We explore the structural changes of a gel-forming colloid polymer mixture under shear by employing Brownian dynamics simulations of a colloidal system with short-ranged attractive depletion interaction in a linear flow profile. While the structure of unpercolated systems changes only slightly under shearing, we discover the formation of slab-like clusters in sheared directed percolated gel networks that are confined between two walls. These gel-slabs are stable over a long time and seem to be related to the syneresis phenomena that can be observed in directed percolated colloidal gels. Only at large shear strength the slabs are destroyed and a homogeneous state with many unbounded particles can be observed. We also quantitatively analyze our results by determining void volumes.
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