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Effects of particle softness on the rheology and yielding of colloidal glasses

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Abstract

We studied the linear and nonlinear rheology of colloidal glasses consisting of hard spheres and soft core-shell particles at several volume fractions to explore the effects of particle softness on the mechanical properties and yielding. Creep and recovery and oscillatory shear measurements were used to determine the shear elastic modulus and the yield strain. Both hard and soft sphere glasses exhibited ‘entropic cage elasticity’ below random close packing, whereas for compressed soft spheres at higher effective volume fractions, the yield strain was determined by shell elasticity. The shear modulus followed a strong increase with volume fraction for hard spheres and a much weaker one for soft particles reflecting their interparticle potential. Nonlinear effects, revealed as strong distortions of the stress signal during yielding, were analyzed via Fourier transform rheology and Lissajous plots. The significant contribution of the nonlinearities was analyzed in terms of strain softening and hardening mechanisms within a cycle of oscillation and discussed in relation to particle softness.

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Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Alexander Wittemann and Matthias Ballauff for providing the core-shell particles and to Andrew Schofield for the PMMA hard spheres. We also thank Dimitris Vlassopoulos for useful discussions and for his comments on the manuscript. Financial support through the EU NoE ‘SoftComp’ (NMP3-CT-2004-502235) and the Marie-Curie ToK ‘Cosines’ (MTCD-CT-2005-029944) is also acknowledged.

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  1. FORTH, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Heraklion, 71110, Crete, Greece

    Arnaud Le Grand

  2. FORTH, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, and Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, Heraklion, 71110, Crete, Greece

    George Petekidis

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  1. Arnaud Le Grand
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Correspondence to George Petekidis.

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Le Grand, A., Petekidis, G. Effects of particle softness on the rheology and yielding of colloidal glasses. Rheol Acta 47, 579–590 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-007-0254-z

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