Response of an elastic Bingham fluid to oscillatory shear

The response of an elastic Bingham fluid to oscillatory strain has been modeled and compared with experiments on an oil-in-water emulsion. The newly developed model includes elastic solid deformation below the yield stress (or strain), and Newtonian flow above the yield stress. In sinusoidal oscillatory deformations at low strain amplitudes the stress response is sinusoidal and in phase with the strain. At large strain amplitudes, above the yield stress, the stress response is non-linear and is out of phase with strain because of the storage and release of elastic recoverable strain. In oscillatory deformation between parallel disks the non-uniform strain in the radial direction causes the location of the yield surface to move in-and-out during each oscillation. The radial location of the yield surface is calculated and the resulting torque on the stationary disk is determined. Torque waveforms are calculated for various strains and frequencies and compared to experiments on a model oil-in-water emulsion. Model parameters are evaluated independently: the elastic modulus of the emulsion is determined from data at low strains, the yield strain is determined from the phase shift between torque and strain, and the Bingham viscosity is determined from the frequency dependence of the torque at high strains. Using these parameters the torque waveforms are predicted quantitatively for all strains and frequencies. In accord with the model predictions the phase shift is found to depend on strain but to be independent of frequency.