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The experimental flow curves of four different yield-stress fluids with different interparticle interactions are studied near the jamming concentration. By appropriate scaling with the distance to jamming all rheology data can be collapsed onto master curves below and above jamming that meet in the shear-thinning regime and satisfy the Herschel-Bulkley and Cross equations, respectively. In spite of differing interactions in the different systems, master curves characterized by universal scaling exponents are found for the four systems. A two-state microscopic theory of heterogeneous dynamics is presented to rationalize the observed transition from Herschel-Bulkley to Cross behavior and to connect the rheological exponents to microscopic exponents for the divergence of the length and time scales of the heterogeneous dynamics. The experimental data and the microscopic theory are compared with much of the available literature data for yield-stress systems.

When made to flow, yield stress materials rarely flow homogeneously. This is mostly attributed to the fact that such materials show a transition from a solid- to a liquid-like state when the stress exceeds some critical value: the yield stress. Thus, if the stress is heterogeneous, so is the flow. Here we consider emulsion flows in a cone-plate geometry that, for Newtonian fluids, correspond to a homogeneous stress situation and show that shear banding can also be observed either due to wall slip or to the existence of a critical shear rate. By means of velocity profiles obtained using a confocal laser scanning microscope combined with a rheometer we conclude that the last type of shear banding occurs only in thixotropic yield stress materials.