Rheology and Structure of Complex Fluids

06-610/09-545 (Fall 2001)

• Course Description
• Course Objectives
• Contacts, Office Hours and Grading
• Schedule
• References

Course Description

Complex fluids abound in practical applications and are driven by fundamentally appealing dynamics and physics. Macroscopic behavior of these fluids are controlled by the structure inherent to the fluids; so an understanding of the rheology-structure coupling is at the center of this active field of research. This course will cover the basic concepts of rheology and mechanical behavior of fluid systems.  Both the experimental and theoretical aspects of rheology will be discussed.  The basic forces influencing complex fluid rheology and rheology will be outlined and discussed; including excluded volume, van der Waals, electrostatic and other interactions.  Methods of characterizing structure will be covered including scattering techniques, optical polarimetry and microscopy.  Examples will focus on several types of complex fluids including polymer solutions and melts, gelling systems, suspensions and self-assembling fluids. 

Prerequisites: 06-609/09-509 Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules, or permission of instructor

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Course Objectives The goal of this course is to introduce students to the exciting (and pertinent) phenomena observed in complex fluids under flow.  By the end of the course, students will be introduced to, and attained skills in, the following areas:

• Identification of the basic forces that give rise to complex fluid behavior.
• Theory behind mechanical rheometry.
• Interpretation of rheological results.
• State of the art techniques for characterization of complex fluid structure.
• Complex fluids and structure length scales in polymeric and colloidal systems.
• Basic knowledge of the physics behind polymeric systems such as: polymer solutions, block copolymers, liquid crystal polymers, polymer melts and associative thickeners.
• Basic knowledge of the physics behind colloidal systems such as: dilute suspensions, concentrated suspensions, emulsions, and yielding gels.

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Lectures: Monday & Wednesday 4:30 - 5:50 pm, WEH 5403

There will be no homework assignments or exams in this course.

Projects

Each student will complete two independent projects for this course: 

1.     The first will be a review of a pertinent journal article published within the last two years.  This project will be due Wednesday October 10, 2001.  (description)

2.     The second project will be more open-ended, allowing students to focus on the area of complex fluid rheology or structural characterization of the most interest to that student.  This project might involve comparison of results on different systems studied in the literature, extension of a simple structural model, determination of the rheological response of a complex fluid system in a different flow field.  This second project will be due towards the end of the semester.  I will meet individually with each student during early November to begin planning the project.  (description) (list of topics)

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