Poiseuille flow of soft glasses in narrow channels: From quiescence to steady state

Abstract

Using numerical simulations, the onset of Poiseuille flow in a confined soft glass is investigated. Starting from the quiescent state, steady flow sets in at a time scale which increases with a decrease in applied forcing. At this onset time scale, a rapid transition occurs via the simultaneous fluidization of regions having different local stresses. In the absence of steady flow at long times, creep is observed even in regions where the local stress is larger than the bulk yielding threshold. Finally, we show that the time scale to attain steady flow depends strongly on the history of the initial state.