Discontinuous Shear Thickening of Frictional Hard-Sphere Suspensions
Abstract
Discontinuous shear thickening (DST) observed in many dense athermal suspensions has proven difficult to understand and to reproduce by numerical simulation. By introducing a numerical scheme including both relevant hydrodynamic interactions and granularlike contacts, we show that contact friction is essential for having DST. Above a critical volume fraction, we observe the existence of two states: a low viscosity, contactless (hence, frictionless) state, and a high viscosity frictional shear jammed state. These two states are separated by a critical shear stress, associated with a critical shear rate where DST occurs. The shear jammed state is reminiscent of the jamming phase of granular matter. Continuous shear thickening is seen as a lower volume fraction vestige of the jamming transition.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1306.5985,
title = {Discontinuous Shear Thickening of Frictional Hard-Sphere Suspensions},
author = {Ryohei Seto and Romain Mari and Jeffrey F. Morris and Morton M. Denn},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.5985},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
5 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett