Rheology, self-diffusion, and microstructure of charged colloids under simple shear by massively parallel nonequilibrium Brownian dynamics

Abstract

The simple shearing of a suspension of charge-stabilized, colloidal particles close to the melting line is investigated by massively parallel, nonequilibrium Brownian dynamics (NEBD) simulation. The suspension undergoes a discontinuous transition from a distorted fluid structure to an ordered ‘‘string’’ phase. Comparisons between simulations of 43 000, 4725 particles, and previous NEBD work on ≤500 particles proves that shear-induced ordering is not an artifact of the small system sizes. We also show that the shear-rate dependence of the rheological properties obtained from NEBD is different than those obtained from nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD), a consequence of the solvent damping not being present in NEMD. The validity of the Ree–Eyring model for viscosity and the stress-optic law for colloids are tested. Further, a type of generalized Stokes–Einstein relationship is discovered for systems under shear.