LAUSR

Rod-like fillers in a flow field of a viscous fluid may form complex structures after passing a sudden contraction. The rods start with a dilute distribution with random positions and orientations. Behind the contraction, a large amount of rods tumble in a spatially correlated way, such that orientations perpendicular to the flow field occur at regular distances along the channel. The correlated tumbling results from an interplay of several effects, the tumbling inferred by the space dependent shear flow, the accumulation of rods at a certain distance from the wall and the rod alignment at the contraction. The system is studied numerically for rod-like fillers in a shear-thinning viscous fluid.