Colloidal gels under shear: Strain rate effects

Attractive colloidal particles are trapped in metastable states such as colloidal gels at high attraction strengths and attractive glasses and high volume fractions. Under shear such states flow via a two step yielding process that relates to bond and cluster or cage breaking. We discuss the way the structural properties and related stress response are affected by the shear rate. At low rates colloidal gels yield during start-up shear essentially in a single step, exhibiting a single stress overshoot due to creation of compact flowing clusters. With increasing shear rate a second stress overshoot, linked with further cluster breaking up to individual particles, is becoming more pronounced. We further present the age dependence of the two step yielding and wall slip effects often taking place during rheological experiments of colloidal gels. The latter is related both with the shear rate dependent gel structure as well as the time evolution of the near wall structure.