Abstract
When a suspension of spherical or near-spherical particles passes through a constriction the particle volume fraction either remains the same or decreases. In contrast to these particulate suspensions, here we observe that an entangled fiber suspension increases its volume fraction up to 14-fold after passing through a constriction. We attribute this response to the entanglements among the fibers that allows the network to move faster than the liquid. By changing the fiber geometry, we find that the entanglements originate from interlocking shapes or high fiber flexibility. A quantitative poroelastic model is used to explain the increase in velocity and extrudate volume fraction. These results provide a new strategy to use fiber volume fraction, flexibility, and shape to tune soft material properties, e.g., suspension concentration and porosity, during delivery, as occurs in healthcare, three-dimensional printing, and material repair. © 2023, The Author(s).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1242 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 14 |
| Online published | 4 Mar 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work is supported by NSF Grant No. CMMI-1661672 (J.K.N. and H.A.S.) and the Hong Kong RGC Research Impact Fund No. R7072-18 (H.C.S., J.K.N. and H.A.S.). This research is partially supported by NSF through the Princeton University (PCCM) Materials Research Science and Engineering Center DMR-2011750. We thank Evgeniy Boyko, Amir Pahlavan and Christopher W. MacMinn for helpful discussions.
Publisher's Copyright Statement
- This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/