Bonaccorso, F;
Succi, S;
Lauricella, M;
Montessori, A;
Tiribocchi, A;
Luo, KH;
(2020)
Shear dynamics of confined bijels.
AIP Advances
, 10
(9)
, Article 095304. 10.1063/5.0021016.
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Abstract
Bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (“bijels”) represent a new class of soft materials made of a densely packed monolayer of solid particles sequestered at the interface of a bicontinuous fluid. Their mechanical properties are relevant to many applications, such as catalysis, energy conversion, soft robotics, and scaffolds for tissue engineering. While their stationary bulk properties have been covered in depth, much less is known about their behavior in the presence of an external shear. In this paper, we numerically study the dynamics of a bijel confined within a three-dimensional rectangular domain and subject to a symmetric shear flow sufficiently intense to break the material. Extensive numerical simulations reveal that the shear flow generally promotes the detachment of a sizable amount of particles from the fluid interface and their accumulation in the bulk. Fluid interfaces undergo large stretching and deformations along the flow direction, an effect that reduces their capability of entrapping particles. These results are supported by a series of quantitative indicators such as (i) curvature of the fluid interface, (ii) spatial distribution of the colloidal particles, and (iii) fluid flow structure within the microchannel.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Shear dynamics of confined bijels |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1063/5.0021016 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0021016 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Mechanical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10110237 |
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