The shear-induced transition between oriented textures and layer-sliding-mediated flows in a micellar cubic crystal
Résumé
A series of experiments has been performed in order to analyse the shear-induced structures for a micellar cubic phase using small-angle neutron and x-ray scattering techniques. Steady shear was applied in a Couette cell to the (EO) triblock copolymer system dissolved in water. At rest, the system crystallizes into a long-range ordered mesophase of face-centred symmetry (lattice parameter ). The good resolution of the x-ray technique enables us to study in detail the transition between shearing flows dominated by oriented textures at low shear rates and flows mediated by the mechanisms of layer sliding at higher rates .