Issue 19, 2011

Stress overshoot in a simple yield stress fluid: An extensive study combining rheology and velocimetry

Abstract

We report a large amount of experimental data on the stress overshoot phenomenon which takes place during start-up shear flows in a simple yield stress fluid, namely a carbopol microgel. A combination of classical rheological measurements and ultrasonic velocimetry makes it possible to get physical insights on the transient dynamics of both the stress σ(t) and the velocity field across the gap of a rough cylindrical Couette cell during the start-up of shear under an applied shear rate [small gamma, Greek, dot above]. (i) At small strains (γ < 1), σ(t) increases linearly and the microgel undergoes homogeneous deformation. (ii) At a time tm, the stress reaches a maximum value σm which corresponds to the failure of the microgel and to the nucleation of a thin lubrication layer at the moving wall. (iii) The microgel then experiences a strong elastic recoil and enters a regime of total wall slip while the stress slowly decreases. (iv) Total wall slip gives way to a transient shear-banding phenomenon, which occurs on timescales much longer than that of the stress overshoot and has been described elsewhere [Divoux et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2010, 104, 208301]. This whole sequence is very robust to concentration changes in the explored range (0.5 ≤ C ≤ 3%w/w). We further demonstrate that the maximum stress σm and the corresponding strain γm = [small gamma, Greek, dot above]tm both depend on the applied shear rate [small gamma, Greek, dot above] and on the waiting time tw between preshear and shear start-up: they remain roughly constant as long as [small gamma, Greek, dot above] is smaller than some critical shear rate [small gamma, Greek, dot above]w ∼ 1/tw and they increase as weak power laws of [small gamma, Greek, dot above] for [small gamma, Greek, dot above] > [small gamma, Greek, dot above]w. Finally, by changing the boundary conditions from rough to smooth, we show that there exists a critical shear rate [small gamma, Greek, dot above]s fixed by the wall surface roughness below which slip at both walls allows for faster stress relaxation and for stress fluctuations strongly reminiscent of stick-slip. Interestingly, the value of [small gamma, Greek, dot above]s is observed to coincide with the shear rate below which the flow curve displays a kink attributed to wall slip.

Graphical abstract: Stress overshoot in a simple yield stress fluid: An extensive study combining rheology and velocimetry

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 Apr 2011
Accepted
28 Jun 2011
First published
22 Aug 2011

Soft Matter, 2011,7, 9335-9349

Stress overshoot in a simple yield stress fluid: An extensive study combining rheology and velocimetry

T. Divoux, C. Barentin and S. Manneville, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 9335 DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05740E

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