Shear banding is a ubiquitous phenomenon in complex fluids flows. Most often it corresponds to a flow state in which a fluid splits into layers of differing apparent viscosities supporting different local shear rates. Shear banding has been observed, either transiently or at steady state, in different classes of complex systems including polymeric fluids and soft glassy materials. Its description and understanding is particularly advanced in surfactant wormlike micelles, for which the experimental evidence of its mechanical signature dates back to the 1990s. Over the past 10 years a strong effort was made to combine global rheology with local time-resolved techniques to probe both the velocity field and the structural properties in various macro- and micro-fluidic geometries. Overall, complex flows have been observed to emerge on top of the shear-banding flow and have been connected to the development of viscoelastic instabilities.In this talk I will try to describe the complete picture of the shear-banding transition in wormlike micelles flowing in Taylor-Couette geometry, from the onset of banding to the development of elastic turbulence. The response of shear-banding wormlike to time-dependent flow protocols such as step stress and shear startup will be examined. The mechanical signatures of the onset of banding will be discussed and compared with general criteria derived by Moorcroft and Fielding. Then I will describe the spatio-temporal dynamics over longer time scales showing the development of secondary flows on top of shear banding. I will also address the transition towards a disordered flow state reminiscent of elastic turbulence in regular polymers. Finally, we will see that non-shear banding wormlike micelles also exhibit elastic instabilities and turbulence, providing a way to explore a large range of elasticity numbers.
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