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Comple fluids - Wikipedia, the free enc clopedia

Comple fluids
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comple fluids are binary mixtures that have a coexistence between two phases: solid liquid (suspensions or
solutions of macromolecules such as polymers), solid gas (granular), liquid gas (foams) and liquid liquid
(emulsions). They exhibit unusual mechanical responses to applied stress or strain due to the geometrical constraints
that the phase coexistence imposes. The mechanical response includes transitions between solid-like and fluid-like
behavior as well as fluctuations. Their mechanical properties can be attributed to characteristics such as high
disorder, caging, and clustering on multiple length scales.

E ample
Shaving cream is an example of a complex fluid. Without stress, the foam appears to be a solid: it does not flow
and can support (very) light loads. However, when adequate stress is applied, shaving cream flows easily like a
fluid. On the level of individual bubbles, the flow is due to rearrangements of small collections of bubbles. On this
scale, the flow is not smooth, but instead consists of fluctuations due to rearrangements of the bubbles and releases
of stress. These fluctuations are similar to the fluctuations that are studied in earthquakes.

D namics
The dynamics of the particles in complex fluids are an area of current research. Energy lost due to friction may be a
nonlinear function of the velocity and normal forces. The topological inhibition to flow by the crowding of
constituent particles is a key element in these systems. Under certain conditions, including high densities and low
temperatures, when externally driven to induce flow, complex fluids are characterized by irregular intervals of solidlike behavior followed by stress relaxations due to particle rearrangements. The dynamics of these systems are
highly nonlinear in nature. The increase in stress by an infinitesimal amount or a small displacement of a single
particle can result in the difference between an arrested state and fluid-like behavior.
Although many materials found in nature can fit into to the class of complex fluids, very little is well understood
about them. Inconsistent and controversial conclusions concerning their material properties still persists. The careful
study of these systems may lead to "new physics" and new states of matter. For example, it has been suggested that
these systems can jam and a "jamming phase diagram" can be used to consider how these systems can jam and
unjam. It is not known whether further research will demonstrate these findings, or whether such a theoretical
framework will prove useful. As yet this large body of theoretical work has been poorly supported with
experiments.

E ternal links
Stephan Herminghaus' Dynamics of Complex Fluids Department (http://www.dcf.ds.mpg.de)
David Weitz's Soft Condensed Matter Physics Laboratory (http://www.seas.harvard.edu/weitzlab/)
Bob Behringer's complex fluids page (http://www.phy.duke.edu/~bob/)
Hernn Alejandro Makse's complex fluids page (http://lisgi1.engr.ccny.cuny.edu/~makse/)
Complex Fluids/Nonlinear Dynamics Laboratory (http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/lab/)
Francois Graner's complex fluids page (http://graner.net/francois/index.php)
Carnegie Mellon University Center for Complex Fluids Engineering (http://cfe.cheme.cmu.edu/)
UCLA Center for Complex Fluids and Interfacial Physics (http://www.seas.ucla.edu/cfip/index.html)
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Comple fluids - Wikipedia, the free enc clopedia

Paulo Arratia's Complex Fluids Laboratory at Penn (http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~parratia/)

Complex Fluids & Computational Polymer Physics at ETH Zurich (http://www.complexfluids.ethz.ch/)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Complex_fluids&oldid=476636247"
Categories: Fluid dynamics Non-Newtonian fluids
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