Drop impact of shear thickening liquids

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates how shear thickening liquids like cornstarch suspensions behave upon impact, revealing unique deformation dynamics driven by their rheology, distinct from Newtonian fluids.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of drop impact behavior of shear thickening suspensions, establishing a scaling relation based on rheological properties.

Findings

Maximal deformation is velocity-independent.

Deformation halts abruptly during impact.

Deformation scales with rheological parameters.

Abstract

The impact of drops of concentrated non-Brownian suspensions (cornstarch and polystyrene spheres) onto a solid surface is investigated experimentally. The spreading dynamics and maxi- mal deformation of the droplet of such shear thickening liquids are found to be markedly different from the impact of Newtonian drops. A particularly striking observation is that the maximal de- formation is independent of the drop velocity and that the deformation suddenly stops during the impact phase. Both observations are due to the shear-thickening rheology of the suspensions, as is theoretically explained from a balance between the kinetic energy and the viscously-dissipated en- ergy, from which we establish a scaling relation between drop maximal deformation and rheological parameters of concentrated suspensions.