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Materials that exhibit yielding behavior are used in many applications, from spreadable foods and cosmetics to direct write three-dimensional printing inks and filled rubbers. Their key design feature is the ability to transition behaviorally from solid to fluid under sufficient load or deformation. Despite its widespread applications, little is known about the dynamics of yielding in real processes, as the nonequilibrium nature of the transition impedes understanding. We demonstrate an iteratively punctuated rheological protocol that combines strain-controlled oscillatory shear with stress-controlled recovery tests. This technique provides an experimental decomposition of recoverable and unrecoverable strains, allowing for solid-like and fluid-like contributions to a yield stress material’s behavior to be separated in a time-resolved manner. Using this protocol, we investigate the overshoot in loss modulus seen in materials that yield. We show that this phenomenon is caused by the transition from primarily solid-like, viscoelastic dissipation in the linear regime to primarily fluid-like, plastic flow at larger amplitudes. We compare and contrast this with a viscoelastic liquid with no yielding behavior, where the contribution to energy dissipation from viscous flow dominates over the entire range of amplitudes tested.
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Understanding the yielding behavior of graphene oxide colloids via experimental strain decomposition
Graphene oxide (GO) has attracted attention in materials science and engineering due to its large aspect ratio and dispersibility in polar solvent including water. It has recently been applied to direct-ink-writing (DIW) printing to realize the fabrication of three-dimensional structures, suggesting a wide variety of potential applications. Without post-processing, DIW printing requires yield stress fluids to fully build three-dimensional objects. The key properties of these inks are the yield stress and the viscoelastic properties during yielding. DIW ink rheology has therefore received significant interest in materials science, as well as mechanical and chemical engineering. Despite this interest, the yielding process has not been clearly elucidated and understanding yielding remains an outstanding problem. In this study, we discuss the yielding behavior of GO colloids via oscillatory rheology by decomposing the total strain into the recoverable and unrecoverable parts through iterative experimental techniques. The recoverable and unrecoverable responses represent viscoelastic solid and plastic properties, respectively, and they are used to determine the averaged storage and dissipation of energies. By mapping these contributions, we more clearly elucidate the yielding behavior of the GO colloids and suggest guidelines for energy efficiency. Beyond the specific lessons learned regarding the DIW-relevant rheology of GO colloids, our study contributes to an evolving development of material-centric and energy-focused methods for understanding the out-of-equilibrium rheological physics associated with the yielding of soft materials.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1847389
- PAR ID:
- 10508403
- Publisher / Repository:
- AIP Publishing
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physics of Fluids
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1070-6631
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0156022
