The viscosity of surfactant solutions is of vital interest to the industrial sector. However, the geometric and rheological properties of micellar suspensions remain poorly resolved, especially when the system is stressed by an external shearing force. As a result, companies are beginning to turn towards computer aided formulation to better understand and optimise the rheological properties of their products, from the tactile characteristics of personal-care products, to the action of engine lubricants.<br/> <br/>In this talk, we will present the results of our coarse-grained Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) DL-MESO simulations of various industrial surfactant systems in shearing flows. These computations elucidate the delicate interplay between force field parameters, structures and rheology. The threefold relationship between a) surfactant interactions and concentration, b) micelle formation, size, shape and orientation, and c) system shearing stress, shear rate and viscosity, is extensively explored in this study. The calculations were performed on IBM power-based High Performance Computing (HPC) systems and the DPD force field interaction parameters were generated using automated optimization methods.<br/>

Structural and rheological properties of micelles in a shear flow

256th National Meeting (2018)

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