The Society of Rheology 87th Annual Meeting

October 11-15, 2015 - Baltimore, Maryland


PO80 


Poster Session


Microrheological study of viscoelastic materials by magnetic tweezers


October 14, 2015 (Wednesday) 6:05


Poster Session / Atrium/Harborview

(Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Tan, Mingyang (Oregon State University, Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering)
  2. Walker, Travis W. (Oregon State University, Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering)

(in printed abstract book)
Mingyang Tan and Travis W. Walker
Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331


Tan, Mingyang


The behavior of heterogeneous soft solids is complex, as they exhibit both viscous and elastic properties that depend on the length-scales of their microstructures. Bulk rheological measurements can provide advanced metrics, such as modulus; however, the measurements of these physical properties are averaged over length-scales on the order of millimeters or greater. For homogeneous materials, bulk rheology is usually sufficient; however, heterogeneous soft solids with microstructures on the micron length-scale can have significantly different rheological responses, depending on the length-scale of the probe. Microrheology applies an external driving force to move micro-particles to probe the physical properties of a material on a length-scale down to a micron and below. In this study, magnetic tweezers, which create a magnetic field to drive magnetic micro-particles, are used to investigate the rheological properties of viscoelastic materials by oscillating and pulling the micro-particles. We investigate the rheological properties of viscoelastic mucus by using micro-particles with different sizes and surface chemistries. We also investigate the alignment of magnetic microdisks in viscoelastic materials using rotating magnetic fields and compare the dynamics of the alignment to our previous work with Newtonian fluids.