Shear-induced structuration of confined carbon black gels: steady-state features of vorticity-aligned flocs

Various dispersions of attractive particles are known to aggregate into patterns of vorticity-aligned stripes when sheared in confined geometries. We report a thorough experimental investigation of such shear-induced vorticity alignment through direct visualization of carbon black gels in both simple plane shear and rotational shear cells. Control parameters such as the gap width, the strain rate, and the gel concentration are systematically varied. It is shown that in steady state the wavelength of the striped pattern depends linearly on the gap width h while being insensitive to both the gel concentration C and the shear rate (gamma) over dot. The width of the vorticity-aligned flocs coincides with the gap width and is also independent of C and (gamma) over dot, which hints to a simple picture in terms of compressible cylindrical flocs. Finally, we show that there exists a critical shear rate (gamma) over dot(c) above which structuration does not occur and that (gamma) over dot(c) scales as h(-alpha) with alpha = 1.4 +/- 0.1 independently of C. This extensive data set should open the way to quantitative modelling of the vorticity alignment phenomenon in attractive colloidal systems.