Shear thickening in electrically stabilized non-aqueous colloidal suspensions

TL;DR

This paper presents an activation model explaining shear thickening in electrically stabilized non-aqueous colloidal suspensions, validated by experimental data showing good agreement within the model's applicability range.

Contribution

It introduces a predictive activation model for shear thickening based on electrostatic interactions, validated against experimental results.

Findings

Model accurately predicts shear thickening onset in certain colloidal suspensions.

Good agreement between experimental data and model predictions within applicability range.

Electrostatic interactions play a key role in shear thickening behavior.

Abstract

The authors previously introduced an activation model for the onset of shear thickening in electrically stabilized colloidal suspensions. It predicts that shear thickening occurs, when particles arranged along the compression axis in a sheared suspension do overcome the electrostatic repulsion at a critical shear stress, and are captured in the primary minimum of the DLVO interaction potential. A comparison with an experimental investigation on non-aqueous silica suspensions, carried out by Maranzano and Wagner, is performed. For particle systems that fall into the applicability range of the theory, a good coincidence between the experimental data and the model predictions can be found.