2009/06/15 by Ajay Singh Negi, Negi, Ajay Singh, Chinedum O. Osuji +1
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Mathematical Theories and Applications #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Theoretical and Computational Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0906.2823
openalex publication_date 2009/06/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We monitor the relaxation of internal stresses in a fractal colloidal gel on cessation of flow and find a weak power law decay, σi ∼ t-α over 5 decades of time where α≈ 0.07. The system exhibits physical aging of the elastic modulus, G' ∼ tβ, with β≈ α. Imposition of zero stress after waiting time tw results in strain recovery as the system relaxes without constraint. Remarkably, recoveries at different tw can be shifted to construct a master curve where data are scaled vertically by 1/σi(tw) and plotted horizontally as (t-tw)/twμ where μ≈ 1.25, indicative of a super-aging response.