The shattering of abrupt shear thickening suspension jet in an air-blast atomizer

Abstract

The primary breakup process of shear thickening is observed via high-speed photography. It is indicated that discontinuous shear thickening (DST) suspension jets exhibit the unique shattering-type breakup mode when air velocity increases up to a high region. In the shattering-type breakup mode, solid-like cracks grow inside the suspension jets, which results in the shattering of the suspension jets. After the shattering, the suspension jets break into tiny fragments with granular and matte surfaces. Combined with the rheological measurement and force analysis, the shattering-type breakup of DST suspension is due to aerodynamic force overwhelming the maximum shear stress. The critical Weber number Wec and a dimensionless number N studied in our previous research (Wang et al., 2022) are used to divide different breakup modes.