Edge fracture occurs frequently in non-Newtonian fluids. A similar instability has often been reported at the free surface of fluids undergoing shear banding, and leads to expulsion of the sample. In this paper the distortion of the free surface of such a shear banding fluid is calculated by balancing the surface tension against the second normal stresses induced in the two shear bands, and simultaneously requiring a continuous and smooth meniscus. We show that wormlike micelles typically retain meniscus integrity when shear banding, but in some cases can lose integrity for a range of average applied shear rates during which one expects shear banding. This meniscus fracture would lead to ejection of the sample as the shear banding region is swept through. We further show that entangled polymer solutions are expected to display a propensity for fracture, because of their much larger second normal stresses. These calculations are consistent with available data in the literature. We also estimate the meniscus distortion of a three band configuration, as has been observed in some wormlike micellar solutions in a cone and plate geometry.
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 r…
One prototypical instability in granular flows is the shear-banding instability, in which a uniform granular shear flow breaks into alternating bands of dense and dilute clusters of particles having low and high shear (shear stress or shear rate), respectively. In this work, the shear-banding instability in an arbitrarily inelastic granular shear flow is analyzed through the linear stability analysis of granular hydrodynamic equations closed with Navier--Stokes-level constitutive relations. It is shown that the choice of appropriate constitutive relations plays an important role in predicting …
Spatially inhomogeneous shear flow occurs in entangled polymer solutions, both as steady state shear banding and transiently after a large step strain or during start up to a steady uniform shear rate. Steady state shear banding is a hallmark of models with a non-monotonic constitutive relation between total shear stress and applied shear rate, but transient banding is sometimes seen in fluids that do not shear band at steady state. We model this behavior using the diffusive Rolie-Poly model in a Newtonian solvent, whose constitutive behavior can be monotonic or non-monotonic depending on the …
In the past twenty years, shear-banding flows have been probed by various techniques, such as rheometry, velocimetry and flow birefringence. In micellar solutions, many of the data collected exhibit unexplained spatio-temporal fluctuations. Recently, it has been suggested that those fluctuations originate from a purely elastic instability of the flow. In cylindrical Couette geometry, the instability is reminiscent of the Taylor-like instability observed in viscoelastic polymer solutions. In this letter, we describe how the criterion for purely elastic Taylor-Couette instability should be adapt…
Shear banding is an important feature of flow in complex fluids. Essentially, shear bands refer to the coexistence of flowing and non-flowing regions in driven material. Understanding the possible sources of shear banding has important implications for a wide range of flow applications. In this regard, quasi-two dimensional flow offers a unique opportunity to study competing factors that result in shear bands. One proposal is the competition between intrinsic dissipation and an external source of dissipation. In this paper, we report on the experimental observation of the transition between di…
We explore theoretically the interplay between shear banding and edge fracture in complex fluids, by performing a detailed simulation study within two constitutive models: the Johnson-Segalman model and the Giesekus model. We consider separately parameter regimes in which the underlying constitutive curve is monotonic and non-monotonic, such that the bulk flow (in the absence of any edge effects) is respectively homogeneous and shear banded. Phase diagrams of the levels of edge disturbance and of bulk (or quasi-bulk) shear banding are mapped as a function of the surface tension of the fluid-ai…
Despite decades of research, the question of whether solutions and melts of highly entangled polymers exhibit shear banding as their steady state response to a steadily imposed shear flow remains controversial. From a theoretical viewpoint, an important unanswered question is whether the underlying constitutive curve of shear stress $σ$ as a function of shear rate $\dotγ$ (for states of homogeneous shear) is monotonic, or has a region of negative slope, $dσ/d\dotγ<0$, which would trigger banding. Attempts to settle the question experimentally via velocimetry of the flow field inside the fluid …
We investigate theoretically shear banding in large amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS) of polymers and wormlike micelles. In LAOStrain we find banding at low frequencies and sufficiently high strain rate amplitudes in fluids for which the underlying constitutive curve of shear stress as a function of shear rate is non-monotonic. This is the direct analogue of quasi steady state banding seen in slow strain rate sweeps along the flow curve. At higher frequencies and sufficiently high strain amplitudes we report a different but related phenomenon, which we call `elastic' shear banding. This is as…
We demonstrate a novel shear-induced mechanism for growth of concentration fluctuations in a bacterial suspension. Using a linear stability analysis, a homogeneously sheared suspension is shown to support exponentially growing layering perturbations in the shear-rate and bacterial concentration. Non-linear simulations show that the instability eventually leads to gradient-banded velocity profiles, with a local depletion of bacteria at the interface between the bands. Our results show that long-ranged hydrodynamic interactions are sufficient to explain recent observations of shear-bands in bact…
We report experiments on hard sphere colloidal glasses that reveal a type of shear banding hitherto unobserved in soft glasses. We present a scenario that relates this to an instability arising from shear-concentration coupling, a mechanism previously thought unimportant in this class of materials. Below a characteristic shear rate $\dotγ_c$ we observe increasingly non-linear velocity profiles and strongly localized flows. We attribute this trend to very slight concentration gradients (likely to evade direct detection) arising in the unstable flow regime. A simple model accounts for both the o…
Shear-banding is a curious but ubiquitous phenomenon occurring in soft matter. The phenomenological similarities between the shear-banding transition and phase transitions has pushed some researchers to adopt a 'thermodynamical' approach, in opposition to the more classical 'mechanical' approach to fluid flows. In this heuristic review, we describe why the apparent dichotomy between those approaches has slowly faded away over the years. To support our discussion, we give an overview of different interpretations of a single equation, the diffusive Johnson-Segalman (dJS) equation, in the context…
We study shear banding in soft glassy materials subject to a large amplitude oscillatory shear flow (LAOS). By numerical simulations of the widely used soft glassy rheology model, supplemented by more general physical arguments, we demonstrate strong banding over an extensive range of amplitudes and frequencies of the imposed shear rate $\dotγ(t)=\dotγ_0\cos(ωt)$, even in materials that do not permit banding as their steady state response to a steady imposed shear flow $\dotγ=\dotγ_0=$const. Highly counterintuitively, banding persists in LAOS even in the limit of zero frequency $ω\to 0$, where…
We study the transient start-up dynamics of a fluidity model which captures the rheological behavior of aging soft glassy materials, in a rectilinear shear flow upon application of step shear rate. We observe that when the steady state flow curve is non-monotonic the system shows transient and/or apparent steady state shear banding in close qualitative agreement with experimental observations. Due to a competetion between aging and rejuvenation during the start up, we show that there is an apparent steady state banding at large times even for shear rates such that the steady state flow curve a…
The `soft glassy rheology' (SGR) model gives an appealing account of the flow of nonergodic soft materials in terms of the local yield dynamics of mesoscopic elements. Newtonian, power-law, and yield-stress fluid regimes arise on varying a `noise temperature', x. Here we extend the model, to capture the idea that the noise is largely caused by yield itself. The extended model can account for the viscosity-bifurcation and shear-banding effects reported recently in a wide range of soft materials. A variant model may shed light on shear banding and strain-rate hysteresis seen in glassy star polym…
Using flow visualizations in Couette geometry, we demonstrate the existence of Taylor-like vortices in the shear-banding flow of a giant micelles system. We show that vortices stacked along the vorticity direction develop concomitantly with interfacial undulations. These cellular structures are mainly localized in the induced band and their dynamics is fully correlated with that of the interface. As the control parameter increases, we observe a transition from a steady vortex flow to a state where pairs of vortices are continuously created and destroyed. Normal stress effects are discussed as …
We assess the possibility of shear banding of semidilute rod-like colloidal suspensions under steady shear ow very close to the isotropic-nematic spinodal, using a combination of rheology, small angle neutron scattering, and laser Doppler velocimetry. Model systems are employed which allow for a length and stiffness variation of the particles. The rheological signature reveals that these systems are strongly shear thinning at moderate shear rates. It is shown that the longest and most flexible rods undergo the strongest shear thinning and have the greatest potential to form shear bands. Althou…
Using a micro particle imaging velocity technique, we resolve for the first time the three dimensionnal structure of wormlike shear banding flows in straight microchannels. The study revealed two effects, which should be generic for shear banding flows: the first is a strong amplification of the confinement induced by the edge of the channel, the second is an instability of the interface between the shear bands. A detailed quantitative comparison of our experimental measurements with a theoretical study of the diffusive Johnson Segalman model leads to excellent agreement. Our study clarifies t…
This precis is aimed as a practical field-guide to situations in which shear banding might be expected in complex fluids subject to an applied shear flow. Separately for several of the most common flow protocols, it summarises the characteristic signatures in the measured bulk rheological signals that suggest the presence of banding in the underlying flow field. It does so both for a steady applied shear flow, and for the time-dependent protocols of shear startup, step stress, finite strain ramp, and large amplitude oscillatory shear. An important message is that banding might arise rather wid…
Recent experimental techniques used to investigate shear banding are reviewed. After recalling the rheological signature of shear-banded flows, we summarize the various tools for measuring locally the microstructure and the velocity field under shear. Local velocity measurements using dynamic light scattering and ultrasound are emphasized. A few results are extracted from current works to illustrate open questions and directions for future research.
Based on numerical modeling with the diffusive Giesekus constitutive equation, a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 138002 (2018), arXiv:1801.08798] claimed that the experimental reports of shear banding in entangled polymeric fluids were due to the disturbances from the sample edge. The conclusion that true bulk shear banding is precluded in the presence of edge effects is at odds with many past experimental, theoretical, numerical, and computer simulation studies. We briefly discuss some problems of this work.
Wormlike micelle solutions are submitted to small-amplitude oscillatory shear superimposed to steady shear in the shear banding regime. By imposing a shear oscillation, the interface between high- and low-shear regions oscillates in time. A two-fluid semi-phenomenological model is proposed for superposition rheology in the shear banding regime, which allows us to extract a characteristic velocity for the interface dynamics from experiments involving only a standard rheometer. Estimates of the stress diffusion coefficient ${\cal D}$ can also be inferred from such superposition experiments. The …
It has recently been argued that steady-state vorticity bands cannot arise in shear thickening suspensions, because the normal stress imbalance across the interface between the bands will set up particle migrations. In this Letter, we develop a simple continuum model that couples shear thickening to particle migration. We show by linear stability analysis that homogeneous flow is unstable towards vorticity banding, as expected, in the regime of negative constitutive slope. In full nonlinear computations, we show however that the resulting vorticity bands are unsteady, with spatiotemporal patte…
We analyze transient dynamics during shear start-up in viscoelastic flows between two parallel plates, with a specific focus on the signatures for the onset of transient shear banding using the Johnson-Segalman, non-stretching Rolie-Poly and Giesekus models. We explore the dynamics of shear start-up in monotonic regions of the constitutive curves using two different methodologies: (i) the oft-used `frozen-time' linear stability (eigenvalue) analysis, wherein we examine whether infinitesimal perturbations imposed on instantaneous stress components (treated as quasi steady states) exhibit expone…
We study numerically the formation of long-lived transient shear bands during shear startup within two models of soft glasses (a simple fluidity model and an adapted `soft glassy rheology' model). The degree and duration of banding depends strongly on the applied shear rate, and on sample age before shearing. In both models the ultimate steady flow state is homogeneous at all shear rates, consistent with the underlying constitutive curve being monotonic. However, particularly in the SGR case, the transient bands can be extremely long lived. The banding instability is neither `purely viscous' n…
Homogeneous polymer solutions are well-known to exhibit viscoelastic flow instabilities: purely elastic when inertia is negligible, inertio-elastic otherwise. Recently, shear-banding wormlike micelles solutions were also discovered to follow a similar phenomenology. In the shear-banding regime, inertia is usually negligible so only purely elastic flows have been reported. Here, we investigate a non-shear-banding solution where inertia becomes significant, leading to flow patterns akin to the inertio-elastic regime of dilute polymer solutions. We show that the instability follows a supercritica…
We show the existence of three well defined time scales in the dynamics of wormlike micelles after a step between two shear rates on the stress plateau. These time scales are compatible with the presence of a structured interface between bands of different viscosities and correspond to the isotropic band destabilization during the stress overshoot, reconstruction of the interface after the overshoot and travel of a fully formed interface. The last stage can be used to estimate a stress diffusion coefficient.
We study theoretically shear banding in soft glassy materials subject to large amplitude time-periodic shear flows, considering separately the protocols of large amplitude oscillatory shear strain, large amplitude square or triangular or sawtooth strain rate, and large amplitude oscillatory shear stress. In each case, we find shear banding to be an important part of the material's flow response for a broad range of values of the frequency $ω$ and amplitude of the imposed oscillation. Crucially, and highly counterintuitively, in the glass phase this persists even to the lowest frequencies acces…
Edge instabilities are believed to be one of the possible causes of shear banding in entangled polymeric fluids. Here, we investigate the effect of edge disturbance on the shear-induced dynamics of well-entangled DNA solutions. Using a custom high-aspect-ratio planar-Couette cell, we systematically measure the velocity profiles of sheared DNA samples at different distances away from the edge of the shear cell. Under a weak oscillatory shear with the corresponding Weissenberg number (Wi) smaller than 1, where DNA solutions exhibit linear velocity profiles with strong wall slip, the penetration …
We review and compare the phenomenological aspects and physical origin of shear-localization and shear-banding in various material types, namely emulsions, suspensions, colloids, granular materials and micellar systems. It appears that shear-banding, which must be distinguished from the simple effect of coexisting static-flowing regions in yield stress fluids, occurs in the form of a progressive evolution of the local viscosity towards two significantly different values in two adjoining regions of the fluids in which the stress takes slightly different values. This suggests that from a global …
Using Dynamic Light Scattering in heterodyne mode, we measure velocity profiles in a much studied system of wormlike micelles (CPCl/NaSal) known to exhibit both shear-banding and stress plateau behavior. Our data provide evidence for the simplest shear-banding scenario, according to which the effective viscosity drop in the system is due to the nucleation and growth of a highly sheared band in the gap, whose thickness linearly increases with the imposed shear rate. We discuss various details of the velocity profiles in all the regions of the flow curve and emphasize on the complex, non-Newtoni…
We investigate the effects of micellar entanglement number on the kinetics of shear banding flow formation in a Taylor-Couette flow. Three sets of wormlike micellar solutions, each set with a similar fluid elasticity and zero-shear-rate viscosity, but with varying entanglement densities, are studied under start-up of steady shear. Our experiments indicate that in the set with the low fluid elasticity, the transient shear banding flow is characterized by the formation of a transient flow reversal in a range of entanglement densities. Outside of this range, the transient flow reversal is not obs…
We observe a novel type of shear banding in the rheology of thixotropic yield-stress fluids that is due to the coupling of both non-locality and thixotropy. The latter is known to lead to shear banding even in homogeneous stress fields, but the bands observed in the presence of non-local effects appear different as the shear rate varies continuously over the shear band. Here, we introduce a simple non-local model for the shear banding (NL-SB), and we implement it for the analysis of micron-scale rheo-MRI velocimetry measurements of a milk microgel suspension in a cone-and-plate geometry. The p…
We have developed a realistic simulation of 2D dry foams under quasi-static shear. After a short transient, a shear-banding instability is observed. These results are compared with measurements obtained on real 2D (confined) foams. The numerical model allows us to exhibit the mechanical response of the material to a single plastication event. From the analysis of this elastic propagator, we propose a scenario for the onset and stability of the flow localization process in foams, which should remain valid for most athermal amorphous systems under creep flow.
We study the dynamics of the Taylor-Couette flow of shear banding wormlike micelles. We focus on the high shear rate branch of the flow curve and show that for sufficiently high Weissenberg numbers, this branch becomes unstable. This instability is strongly sub-critical and is associated with a shear stress jump. We find that this increase of the flow resistance is related to the nucleation of turbulence. The flow pattern shows similarities with the elastic turbulence, so far only observed for polymer solutions. The unstable character of this branch led us to propose a scenario that could acco…
Using velocity profile measurements based on dynamic light scattering and coupled to structural and rheological measurements in a Couette cell, we present evidences for a shear-banding scenario in the shear flow of the onion texture of a lyotropic lamellar phase. Time-averaged measurements clearly show the presence of structural shear-banding in the vicinity of a shear-induced transition, associated to the nucleation and growth of a highly sheared band in the flow. Our experiments also reveal the presence of slip at the walls of the Couette cell. Using a simple mechanical approach, we demonstr…
Within a highly generalised theoretical framework for the flow properties of complex fluids, we study the onset of shear banding in the three most common time-dependent experimental protocols: step stress, step strain and shear startup. By means of a linear stability analysis we derive a fluid-universal criterion for the onset of banding, separately for each protocol, that depends only on the shape of the experimentally measured time-dependent rheological response function, independent of the constitutive law and internal state variables of the particular fluid in question. Our predictions thu…
Shear Banding in Amorphous Solids as a Nonlinear Screened Soft Mode Instability
Hangzhou International Innovation Institute, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学杭州创新研究院）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；Sino-Europe Complex Science Center, School of Mathematics, North University of China（中北大学数学学院中欧复杂科学中心）；Department of Chemical Physics, the Weizmann Institute of Science（魏茨曼科学研究所化学物理系）
Multiphase shear flows often show banded structures that affect the global behavior of complex fluids e.g. in microdevices. Here we investigate numerically the banding of emulsions, i.e. the formation of regions of high and low volume fraction, alternated in the vorticity direction and aligned with the flow (shear bands). These bands are associated with a decrease of the effective viscosity of the system. To understand the mechanism of banding experimentally observed we have performed interface resolved simulations of the two-fluid system. The experiments were perfomed starting with a random d…
Using high-resolution confocal rheometry, we study the shear profiles of well-entangled DNA solutions under large amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS) in a rectilinear planar shear cell. With increasing Weissenberg number (Wi), we observe successive transitions from normal Newtonian linear shear profiles to wall-slip dominant shear profiles and finally to shear-banding profiles at high Wi. To investigate the microscopic origin of the observed shear banding, we study the dynamics of micron-sized tracers embedded in DNA solutions. Surprisingly, tracer particles in the shear frame exhibit transient…
A model of a shear band as a zero-thickness nonlinear interface is proposed and tested using finite element simulations. An imperfection approach is used in this model where a shear band, that is assumed to lie in a ductile matrix material (obeying von Mises plasticity with linear hardening), is present from the beginning of loading and is considered to be a zone in which yielding occurs before the rest of the matrix. This approach is contrasted with a perturbative approach, developed for a J$_2$-deformation theory material, in which the shear band is modelled to emerge at a certain stage of a…
We report on the spatio-temporal dynamics of the interface in shear-banding flow of a wormlike micellar system (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and sodium nitrate in water) during a start-up experiment. Using the scattering properties of the induced structures, we demonstrate the existence of an instability of the interface between bands along the vorticity direction. Different regimes of spatio-temporal dynamics of the interface are indentified along the stress plateau. We build a model based on the flow symetry which qualitatively describes the observed patterns.
The linear stability analysis of an uniform shear flow of granular materials is revisited using several cases of a Navier-Stokes'-level constitutive model in which we incorporate the global equation of states for pressure and thermal conductivity (which are accurate up-to the maximum packing density $ν_{m}$) and the shear viscosity is allowed to diverge at a density $ν_μ$ ($< ν_{m}$), with all other transport coefficients diverging at $ν_{m}$. It is shown that the emergence of shear-banding instabilities (for perturbations having no variation along the streamwise direction), that lead to shear…
We investigate the occurrence of shear banding in nematogenic fluids under planar Couette flow, based on mesoscopic dynamical equations for the orientational order parameter and the shear stress. We focus on parameter values where the sheared homogeneous system exhibits regular oscillatory orientational dynamics, whereas the equilibrium system is either isotropic (albeit close to the isotropic--nematic transition) or deep in its nematic phase. The numerical calculations are restricted to spatial variations in shear gradient direction. We find several new types of shear banded states characteri…
We propose a simple nanostructured pinning array geometry where a rich variety of complex vortex shear banding phenomena can be realized. A single row of pinning sites is removed from a square pinning array. Shear banding effects arise when vortex motion in the pin-free channel nucleates motion of vortices in the surrounding pinned regions, creating discrete steps in the vortex velocity profile away from the channel. Near the global depinning transition, the width of the band of moving vortices undergoes oscillations or fluctuations that can span the entire system. We use simulations to show t…
We study a simple model of shear banding in which the flow-induced phase is destabilised by coupling between flow and microstructure (wormlike micellar length). By varying the strength of the instability and the applied shear rate, we find a rich variety of oscillatory and rheochaotic shear banded flows. At low shear and weak instability, the induced phase pulsates in width next to one wall of the flow cell. For stronger instability, single or multiple high shear pulses ricochet across the cell. At high shear rates we observe oscillating bands on either side of a defect. In some cases, multipl…
We study the dynamics of shear-band formation and evolution using a simple rheological model. The description couples the local structure and viscosity to the applied shear stress. We consider in detail the Couette geometry, where the model is solved iteratively with the Navier-Stokes equation to obtain the time-evolution of the local velocity and viscosity fields. It is found that the underlying reason for dynamic effects is the non-homogeneous shear distribution, which is amplified due to a positive feedback between the flow field and the viscosity response of the shear thinning fluid. This …
In 1975 Doi and Edwards predicted that entangled polymer melts and solutions can have a constitutive instability, signified by a decreasing stress for shear rates greater than the inverse of the reptation time. Experiments did not support this, and more sophisticated theories incorporated Marrucci's idea (1996) of removing constraints by advection; this produced a monotonically increasing stress and thus stable constitutive behavior. Recent experiments have suggested that entangled polymer solutions may possess a constitutive instability after all, and have led some workers to question the val…
Soft Glassy Materials, Non Linear Rheology, Lattice Kinetic models, frustrated phase separation} We present numerical simulations based on a Boltzmann kinetic model with competing interactions, aimed at characterizating the rheological properties of soft-glassy materials. The lattice kinetic model is shown to reproduce typical signatures of driven soft-glassy flows in confined geometries, such as Herschel-Bulkley rheology, shear-banding and histeresys. This lends further credit to the present lattice kinetic model as a valuable tool for the theoretical/computational investigation of the rheolo…
We study the emergence of a yield stress in dense suspensions of non-Brownian particles, by combining local velocity and concentration measurements using Magnetic Resonance Imaging with macroscopic rheometric experiments. We show that the competition between gravity and viscous stresses is at the origin of the development of a yield stress in these systems at relatively low volume fractions. Moreover, it is accompanied by a shear banding phenomenon that is the signature of this competition. However, if the system is carefully density matched, no yield stress is encountered until a volume fract…
We demonstrate that application of an increasing shear field on a glass leads to an intriguing dynamic first order transition in analogy to equilibrium transitions. By following the particle dynamics as a function of the driving field in a colloidal glass, we identify a critical shear rate upon which the diffusion time scale of the glass exhibits a sudden discontinuity. Using a new dynamic order parameter, we show that this discontinuity is analogous to a first order transition, in which the applied stress acts as the conjugate field on the system's dynamic evolution. These results offer new p…
We review the experimental and theoretical results obtained during the past decade on the structure and rheology of wormlike micellar solutions. We focus on the linear and nonlinear viscoelasticity and emphasize the analogies with polymers. Based on a comprehensive survey of surfactant systems, the present study shows the existence of standard rheological behaviors for semidilute and concentrated solutions. One feature of this behavior is a shear banding transition associated with a stress plateau in the nonlinear mechanical response. For concentrated solutions, we show that in the plateau reg…
We report a large set of experimental data which demonstrates that a simple yield stress fluid, i.e. which does not present aging or thixotropy, exhibits transient shear banding before reaching a steady state characterized by a homogeneous, linear velocity profile. The duration of the transient regime decreases as a power law with the applied shear rate $\dotγ$. This power law behavior, observed here in carbopol dispersions, does not depend on the gap width and on the boundary conditions for a given sample preparation. For $\dotγ\lesssim 0.1$ s$^{-1}$, heterogeneous flows could be observed for…
We study numerically the nonlinear dynamics of a shear banding interface in two dimensional planar shear flow, within the non-local Johnson Segalman model. Consistent with a recent linear stability analysis, we find that an initially flat interface is unstable with respect to small undulations for sufficiently small ratio of the interfacial width $\ell$ to cell length $L_x$. The instability saturates in finite amplitude interfacial fluctuations. For decreasing $\ell/L_x$ these undergo a non equilibrium transition from simple travelling interfacial waves with constant average wall stress, to pe…
We study the steady flow properties of different three-dimensional aqueous foams in a wide gap Couette geometry. From local velocity measurements through Magnetic Resonance Imaging techniques and from viscosity bifurcation experiments, we find that these foams do not exhibit any observable signature of shear banding. This contrasts with two previous results (Rodts et al., Europhys. Lett., 69 (2005) 636 and Da Cruz et al., Phys. Rev. E, 66 (2002) 051305); we discuss possible reasons for this dicrepancy. Moreover, the foams we studied undergo steady flow for shear rates well below the critical s…
Bacterial suspensions--a premier example of active fluids--show an unusual response to shear stresses. Instead of increasing the viscosity of the suspending fluid, the emergent collective motions of swimming bacteria can turn a suspension into a "superfluid" with zero apparent viscosity. Although the existence of active "superfluids" has been demonstrated in bulk rheological measurements, the microscopic origin and dynamics of such an exotic phase have not been experimentally probed. Here, using high-speed confocal rheometry, we study the dynamics of concentrated bacterial suspensions under si…
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 He…
We study the dynamics of shear startup of the Johnson-Segalman and non-stretching Rolie-Poly models using nonlinear simulations. We consider cases where the startup is from zero shear rate to shear rates in both the monotonic and nonmonotonic regions of the constitutive curve. For the Johnson-Segalman model, which exhibits a shear stress overshoot during startup, our nonlinear simulations show that transient shear banding is absent regardless of whether the start-up shear rate is in the monotonic or nonmonotonic regions of the constitutive curve. In the latter case, while there is clearly an i…
Jammed systems all have a yield stress. Among these materials some have been shown to shear-band but it is as yet unclear why some materials develop shear-band and some others do not. In order to rationalize existing data concerning the flow characteristics of jammed systems and in particular understand the physical origin of such a difference we propose a simple approach for describing the steady flow behaviour of yield stress fluids, which retains only basic physical ingredients. Within this frame we show that in the liquid regime the behaviour of jammed systems turns from that of a simple y…
