Shear-rate-dependent structural order and viscosity of a fluid with short-range attractions

We study a model short-range attractive fluid under shear. For this system, the strength of interparticle attractions strongly influences the equilibrium structural order. We find that shear monotonically decreases structural order regardless of the strength of the attractions. There is a strong correlation between shear-rate-dependent viscosity and a structural order metric, suggesting a structurally based constitutive equation. This correlation also holds for the Lennard-Jones fluid.