Institute for Theoretical Physics, Center for Extreme Matter and Emergent Phenomena, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Peter Guthrie Tait Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3FD, UK.
Soft Matter. 2018 Dec 19;15(1):10-16. doi: 10.1039/c8sm01611a.
Colloidal particles with strong, short-ranged attractions can form a gel. We simulate this process without and with hydrodynamic interactions (HI), using the lattice-Boltzmann method to account for presence of a thermalized solvent. We show that HI speed up and slow down gelation at low and high volume fractions, respectively. The transition between these two regimes is linked to the existence of a percolating cluster shortly after quenching the system. However, when we compare gels at matched 'structural age', we find nearly indistinguishable structures with and without HI. Our result explains longstanding, unresolved conflicts in the literature.
具有强短程吸引力的胶体颗粒可以形成凝胶。我们使用晶格玻尔兹曼方法模拟了没有和有流体力学相互作用（HI）的这一过程，以考虑热溶剂的存在。我们表明，HI 分别在低和高体积分数下加速和减缓凝胶化过程。这两种状态之间的转变与在系统淬火后不久存在一个连通的簇有关。然而，当我们比较具有和没有 HI 的匹配“结构年龄”的凝胶时，我们发现它们的结构几乎无法区分。我们的结果解释了文献中长期存在的、未解决的冲突。
