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Generality of shear thickening in dense suspensions
Nature Materials
|February 2, 2010
Summary
Shear thickening in suspensions is often masked by yield stress. Reducing yield stress reveals this behavior, enabling new smart fluid designs.
Area of Science:
- Rheology and materials science, focusing on complex fluids and suspensions.
Background:
- Suspensions commonly exhibit shear thinning, where viscosity decreases with shear rate.
- Shear thickening, the opposite behavior, is expected but rarely observed in many suspensions.
- This study investigates the underlying reasons for the apparent rarity of shear thickening.
Discussion:
- Shear thickening behavior can be masked by a significant yield stress in suspensions.
- Yield stress arises from various sources, including particle interactions, electric/magnetic fields, and high packing fractions.
- The study quantifies a threshold below which shear thickening becomes observable.
Key Insights:
- Yield stress can obscure intrinsic shear thickening properties of suspensions.
- A universal mechanism explains the masking of shear thickening by yield stress.
- Rheological experiments demonstrate the recovery of shear thickening when yield stress is reduced.
Outlook:
- Findings enable the design of novel smart suspensions with tunable rheological properties.
- Potential for developing electro- or magnetorheological fluids that exhibit shear thickening.
- Opens new avenues for controlling fluid behavior in response to external stimuli.
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