Eur. Phys. J. E (2012) 35: 20
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2012-12020-3

Regular Article

Stress propagation in a concentrated colloidal suspension under shear

¹ National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8615, MD 20899-8615, Gaithersburg, USA
² CNRS, IPCMS, 23 rue du Loess, 67034, Strasbourg Cedex, France
³ Sika Technology A.G., Tüffenwies 16, CH-8048, Zürich, Switzerland

^* e-mail: pascal.hebraud@ipcms.unistra.fr

Received: 12 September 2011
Accepted: 27 February 2012
Published online: 21 March 2012

Abstract

The stress propagation in a concentrated attractive colloidal suspension under shear is studied using numerical simulations. The spatial correlations of the intercolloidal stress field are studied and an inertia-like tensor is defined in order to characterize the anisotropic nature of the stress field. It is shown that the colloids remain in a liquid order, the intercolloidal stress is strongly anisotropic. A transition under flow is observed: during a transient regime at low deformation, the stress propagates along the compression direction of the shear, whereas at larger deformations, the stress is organized into layers parallel to the (flow, vorticity) plane.