How Confinement-Induced Structures Alter the Contribution of Hydrodynamic and Short-Ranged Repulsion Forces to the Viscosity of Colloidal Suspensions

Abstract

Understanding the flow of complex fluids through confined spaces, and forces governing the flow, is key to diverse fields, from blood flow to lubricant design. But studying such situations is difficult because typical devices can't achieve the necessary degree of confinement. New experiments and simulations reveal flow behavior under different levels of confinement and show how this behavior can be tuned.