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Title: Shear relaxations of confined liquids

Miscellaneous ·
OSTI ID:5605102

Ultrathin (<40 [angstrom]) films of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (OMCTS), hexadecane, and dodecane were subjected to linear and non-linear oscillatory shear between flat plates. Shearing frequencies of 0.1 to 800 s[sup [minus]1] were applied at pressures from zero to 0.8 MPa using a surface rheometer only recently developed. In most cases the plates were atomically smooth mica surfaces; the role of surface interactions was examined by replacing these with alkyl chain monolayers. OMCTS and hexadecane were examined at a temperature about 5 Celcius degrees above their melting points and tended to solidify. Newtonian plateaus having enormous viscosities were observed at low shear rates. The onset of shear thinning implied relaxation times of about 0.1 s in the linear structure of the confined liquids. Large activation volumes ([approximately]80 nm[sup 3]) suggested that shear involved large-scale collective motion. Dodecane was studied at a much higher temperature relative to its melting point and showed no signs of impending solidification though it exhibited well-defined regions of Newtonian response and power law shear thinning. When treated with molecular sieves before use, dodecane had relaxation times which were short (0.02 s) compared to hexadecane, but still exhibited large-scale collective motion. When treated with silica gel, an unexplained long-time relaxation (10 s) was seen in the Newtonian viscosity of dodecane. The relaxation time of the linear structure, 0.005 s was very small, and the storage modulus was unresolvable. The small activation volume (7 nm[sup 3]) indicated a much lower level of collective motion. The activation volume remained small when dodecane was confined between tightly bound, low energy, alkyl monolayers. At low strains the storage and loss moduli became very large (>10[sup 4] Pa), probably due to interactions with flaws in the monolayers. Dramatic signs of wall slip were observed at large strains even at low pressures.

Research Organization:
Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL (United States)
OSTI ID:
5605102
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English