No Arabic abstract
Under an applied traction, highly concentrated suspensions of solid particles in fluids can turn from a state in which they flow to a state in which they counteract the traction as an elastic solid: a shear-jammed state. Remarkably, the suspension can turn back to the flowing state simply by inverting the traction. A tensorial model is presented and tested in paradigmatic cases. We show that, to reproduce the phenomenology of shear jamming in generic geometries, it is necessary to link this effect to the elastic response supported by the suspension microstructure rather than to a divergence of the viscosity.
The phenomenon of shear-induced jamming is a factor in the complex rheological behavior of dense suspensions. Such shear-jammed states are fragile, i.e., they are not stable against applied stresses that are incompatible with the stress imposed to create them. This peculiar flow-history dependence of the stress response is due to flow-induced microstructures. To examine jammed states realized under constant shear stress, we perform dynamic simulations of non-Brownian particles with frictional contact forces and hydrodynamic lubrication forces. We find clear signatures that distinguish these fragile states from the more conventional isotropic jammed states.
Particle-based simulations of discontinuous shear thickening (DST) and shear jamming (SJ) suspensions are used to study the role of stress-activated constraints, with an emphasis on resistance to gear-like rolling. Rolling friction decreases the volume fraction required for DST and SJ, in quantitative agreement with real-life suspensions with adhesive surface chemistries and rough particle shapes. It sets a distinct structure of the frictional force network compared to only sliding friction, and from a dynamical perspective leads to an increase in the velocity correlation length, in part responsible for the increased viscosity. The physics of rolling friction is thus a key element in achieving a comprehensive understanding of strongly shear-thickening materials.
Colloidal shear thickening presents a significant challenge because the macroscopic rheology becomes increasingly controlled by the microscopic details of short ranged particle interactions in the shear thickening regime. Our measurements here of the first normal stress difference over a wide range of particle volume fraction elucidate the relative contributions from hydrodynamic lubrication and frictional contact forces, which have been debated. At moderate volume fractions we find $N_1<0$, consistent with hydrodynamic models, however at higher volume fractions and shear stresses these models break down and we instead observe dilation ($N_1>0$), indicating frictional contact networks. Remarkably, there is no signature of this transition in the viscosity, instead this change in the sign of $N_1$ occurs while the shear thickening remains continuous. These results suggest a scenario where shear thickening is driven primarily by the formation of frictional contacts, with hydrodynamic forces playing a supporting role at lower concentrations. Motivated by this picture, we introduce a simple model which combines these frictional and hydrodynamic contributions and accurately fits the measured viscosity over a wide range of particle volume fraction and shear stress.
We experimentally investigate the rheology and stress fluctuations of granules densely suspended in silicone oil. We find that both thickening strength and stress fluctuations significantly weaken with oil viscosity $eta_0$. Comparison of our rheological results to the Wyart-Cates model for describing different dynamic jamming states suggests a transition from frictional contacts to lubrication interactions as $eta_0$ increases. To clarify the contribution from viscous interactions to the rheology, we systematically measure stress fluctuations in various flow states. Reduction of stress fluctuations with $eta_0$ indicates that a strong lubrication layer greatly inhibits force correlations among particles. Measuring stress fluctuations in the strong shear thickening regime, we observe a crossover from asymmetric Gamma to symmetric Gaussian distributions and associated with it a decrease of lateral (radial) correlation length $xi$ with increasing shear rate.
Particles suspended in a Newtonian fluid raise the viscosity and also generally give rise to a shear-rate dependent rheology. In particular, pronounced shear thickening may be observed at large solid volume fractions. In a recent article (R. Seto, R. Mari, J. F. Morris, and M. M. Denn., Phys. Rev. Lett., 111:218301, 2013) we have considered the minimum set of components to reproduce the experimentally observed shear thickening behavior, including Discontinuous Shear Thickening (DST). We have found frictional contact forces to be essential, and were able to reproduce the experimental behavior by a simulation including this physical ingredient along with viscous lubrication. In the present article, we thoroughly investigate the effect of friction and express it in the framework of the jamming transition. The viscosity divergence at the jamming transition has been a well known phenomenon in suspension rheology, as reflected in many empirical laws for the viscosity. Friction can affect this divergence, and in particular the jamming packing fraction is reduced if particles are frictional. Within the physical description proposed here, shear thickening is a direct consequence of this effect: as the shear rate increases, friction is increasingly incorporated as more contacts form, leading to a transition from a mostly frictionless to a mostly frictional rheology. This result is significant because it shifts the emphasis from lubrication hydrodynamics and detailed microscopic interactions to geometry and steric constraints close to the jamming transition.