Microstructure and rheology of soft to rigid shear-thickening colloidal suspensions

Abstract

The shear rate-dependent rheological properties of soft to rigid colloidal suspensions are studied using computational models. We show that a contact force defined based on an elasto-hydrodynamic deformation theory captures an important rheological behavior of colloidal suspensions: While near hard-sphere particles exhibit a strong and continuous shear thickening the evolves to a constant viscosity state, soft suspensions undergo a second shear-thinning regime at high Peclet numbers when the hydrodynamic stresses become larger than the modulus of the colloidal particles. We measure N1 and N2 to be large and negative in the shear-thickening regime; however, for soft spheres at the onset of second shear-thinning N2 reduces in magnitude and eventually becomes positive. We show that for near hard-sphere suspensions, colloidal pressure, shear stress, and normal stress difference coefficients tend to diverge near the maximum packing fraction while P>σ>N1>N2.