Search results for "Complex fluid"
showing 10 items of 15 documents
Connectivity percolation in suspensions of hard platelets
2012
We present a study on connectivity percolation in suspensions of hard platelets by means of Monte Carlo simulation. We interpret our results using a contact-volume argument based on an effective single--particle cell model. It is commonly assumed that the percolation threshold of anisotropic objects scales as their inverse aspect ratio. While this rule has been shown to hold for rod-like particles, we find that for hard plate-like particles the percolation threshold is non-monotonic in the aspect ratio. It exhibits a shallow minimum at intermediate aspect ratios and then saturates to a constant value. This effect is caused by the isotropic-nematic transition pre-empting the percolation tran…
Magnetorheology: Fluids, Structures and Rheology
2002
Magnetorheological suspensions are complex fluids which show a transition from a liquid behavior to a solid one upon application of a magnetic field. This transition is due to the the attractive dipolar forces between the particles which have been magnetized by the applied field. The formation of a network of particles or aggregates throughout the suspension is the basic phenomena which is responsible for the strength of the solid phase. In this paper we shall give an overview on the fluids and their properties and we shall especially emphasize the interplay between magnetic forces which are responsible for the gelling of the suspension and on the other hand of hydrodynamic and thermal forc…
Nondestructive in-line sub-picomolar detection of magnetic nanoparticles in flowing complex fluids
2018
AbstractOver the last decades, the use of magnetic nanoparticles in research and commercial applications has increased dramatically. However, direct detection of trace quantities remains a challenge in terms of equipment cost, operating conditions and data acquisition times, especially in flowing conditions within complex media. Here we present the in-line, non-destructive detection of magnetic nanoparticles using high performance atomic magnetometers at ambient conditions in flowing media. We achieve sub-picomolar sensitivities measuring ~30 nm ferromagnetic iron and cobalt nanoparticles that are suitable for biomedical and industrial applications, under flowing conditions in water and who…
Magnetic wire-based sensors for the micro-rheology of complex fluids
2013
We propose a simple micro-rheology technique to evaluate the viscoelastic properties of complex fluids. The method is based on the use of magnetic wires of a few microns in length submitted to a rotational magnetic field. In this work, the method is implemented on a surfactant wormlike micellar solution that behaves as an ideal Maxwell fluid. With increasing frequency, the wires undergo a transition between a steady and a hindered rotation regime. The study shows that the average rotational velocity and the amplitudes of the oscillations obey scaling laws with well-defined exponents. From a comparison between model predictions and experiments, the rheological parameters of the fluid are det…
Telechelic Star Polymers as Self-Assembling Units from the Molecular to the Macroscopic Scale
2012
By means of multiscale molecular simulations, we show that telechelic-star polymers are a simple, robust, and tunable system, which hierarchically self-assembles into soft-patchy particles and mechanically stabilizes selected, open crystalline structures. The self-aggregating patchy behavior can be fully controlled by the number of arms per star and by the fraction of attractive monomeric units at the free ends of the arms. Such self-assembled soft-patchy particles while forming, upon augmenting density, gel-like percolating networks, preserve properties as particle size, number, and arrangement of patches per particle. In particular, we demonstrate that the flexibility inherent in the soft…
Motion, relaxation dynamics, and diffusion processes in two-dimensional colloidal crystals confined between walls
2012
The dynamical behavior of single-component two-dimensional colloidal crystals confined in a slit geometry is studied by Langevin dynamics simulation of a simple model. The colloids are modeled as pointlike particles, interacting with the repulsive part of the Lennard-Jones potential, and the fluid molecules in the colloidal suspension are not explicitly considered. Considering a crystalline strip of triangular lattice structure with n=30 rows, the (one-dimensional) walls confining the strip are chosen as two rigidly fixed crystalline rows at each side, commensurate with the lattice structure and, thus, stabilizing long-range order. The case when the spacing between the walls is incommensura…
Natural micro-scale heterogeneity induced solute and nanoparticle retardation in fractured crystalline rock.
2011
Abstract We studied tracer (Tritiated Water (HTO); Tritium replaces one of the stable hydrogen atoms in the H 2 O molecule) and nanoparticle (quantum dots (QD)) transport by means of column migration experiments and comparison to 3D CFD modeling. Concerning the modeling approach, a natural single fracture was scanned using micro computed tomography (μCT) serving as direct input for the model generation. The 3D simulation does not incorporate any chemical processes besides the molecular diffusion coefficient solely reflecting the impact of fracture heterogeneity on mass (solute and nanoparticles) transport. Complex fluid velocity distributions (flow channeling and flowpath heterogeneity) evo…
Monte Carlo simulations of phase transitions of systems in nanoscopic confinement
2007
Abstract When simple or complex fluids are confined to ultrathin films or channels or other cavities of nanoscopic linear dimensions, the interplay of finite size and surface controls the phase behavior, and may lead to phase transitions rather different from the corresponding phenomena in the bulk. Monte Carlo simulation is a very suitable tool to clarify the complex behavior of such systems, since the boundary conditions providing the confinement can be controlled and arbitrarily varied, and detailed structural information on the inhomogeneous states of the considered systems is available. Examples used to illustrate these concepts include simple Ising models in pores and double-pyramid-s…
Bidirectional random motion driven by globally coupled noisy active elements in an electric field
2004
The assembly of the insulating Brownian particles globally coupled due to the macroscopic flow of the liquid with low conductivity has transitions between the states of random motion and random bidirectional and unidirectional motion. The threshold values of the parameters for the transition to random bidirectional motion is found by the effective field method and correspond to those found by Brownian dynamics. The behavior of the assembly is similar to the behavior of different active multistable systems.
Poiseuille flow of a Quincke suspension
2014
The controversy of models of dielectric particle suspensions with antisymmetric stress, which predict a nonphysical cusp of the velocity profile in plane Poiseuille flow under the action of the electrical field, is resolved. In the mean-field approximation, the nonlinear kinetic equation is derived for coupled due to the flow translational and rotational motion of the particles. By its numerical solution, it is shown that the velocity profile is smeared due to the translational diffusion of the particles with opposite directions of rotation. The obtained results for the velocity profiles and flow rates as a function of the electric field strength are in qualitative agreement with the existi…