Probing Flow-Induced Chain Scission in Shear-Banding Wormlike Micelles
Abstract
We investigate the microstructural dynamics of wormlike micellar (WLM) solutions based on CPyCl/NaSal/D2O under shear flow using spatially resolved rheo-diffusion NMR, velocity-compensated diffusion measurements, and rheo-optical imaging in a Taylor--Couette geometry. Two viscoelastic systems were examined: a non-shear-banding WLM with a molar salt-surfactant concentration ratio of R=0.4 and a shear-banding WLM with R=0.53. Rheo-optical and velocity measurements confirm homogeneous flow for the non-shear-banding system and the coexistence of low- and high-shear bands within the stress-plateau regime for the shear-banding system. Despite the pronounced heterogeneity in velocity and shear rate associated with shear banding, the local surfactant self-diffusivity remains spatially uniform across the gap and throughout the stress-plateau regime. Furthermore, analysis of the mean-squared-displacement scaling reveals no measurable difference between the high- and low-shear bands. These results demonstrate that the micellar microstructure remains largely unchanged despite the formation of shear bands and provide direct experimental evidence that flow-induced micellar chain scission is not a dominant mechanism governing shear banding in this WLM system.
Related
- A unified description of flow-induced scission of wormlike micelles under shear and extensional flows
- Multi-Fidelity Machine Learning for Predicting Startup Stress Growth and Strain Hardening in Wormlike Micellar Solutions
- Probing Antialtermagnetism via Orbital-Field-Induced Spin Splitting
- Probing Scalar-Induced First-Order Phase Transitions with the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background
- Probing New Physics with b → u ℓ νℓ induced decays
BibTeX
@misc{scigliani2026probing,
title = {{Probing Flow-Induced Chain Scission in Shear-Banding Wormlike Micelles}},
author = {Alfredo Scigliani and Samuel C. Grant and Hadi Mohammadigoushki},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.25442},
eprint = {2610.25442},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25442},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Probing Flow-Induced Chain Scission in Shear-Banding Wormlike Micelles
AU - Alfredo Scigliani
AU - Samuel C. Grant
AU - Hadi Mohammadigoushki
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.25442
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25442
AB - We investigate the microstructural dynamics of wormlike micellar (WLM) solutions based on CPyCl/NaSal/D_2O under shear flow using spatially resolved rheo-diffusion NMR, velocity-compensated diffusion measurements, and rheo-optical imaging in a Taylor--Couette geometry. Two viscoelastic systems were examined: a non-shear-banding WLM with a molar salt-surfactant concentration ratio of R=0.4 and a shear-banding WLM with R=0.53. Rheo-optical and velocity measurements confirm homogeneous flow for the non-shear-banding system and the coexistence of low- and high-shear bands within the stress-plateau regime for the shear-banding system. Despite the pronounced heterogeneity in velocity and shear rate associated with shear banding, the local surfactant self-diffusivity remains spatially uniform across the gap and throughout the stress-plateau regime. Furthermore, analysis of the mean-squared-displacement scaling reveals no measurable difference between the high- and low-shear bands. These results demonstrate that the micellar microstructure remains largely unchanged despite the formation of shear bands and provide direct experimental evidence that flow-induced micellar chain scission is not a dominant mechanism governing shear banding in this WLM system.
ER -