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https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-fluid-010816-060128

Shear thickening is the increase of the apparent viscosity as shear rate or shear stress increases. This phenomenon is pronounced in concentrated (dense) suspensions of both colloidal-scale and larger particles, with an abrupt form, known as discontinuous shear thickening, observed as the maximum flowable solid fraction is approached. An overview of observed shear thickening behavior is presented, with a discussion of present understanding of the relationship of suspension shear thickening to granular jamming. Mechanistic arguments for the extreme change in rheological properties are outlined, and recent evidence from experiment and simulation for the role of contact forces is presented. Interactions of particles by fluid mechanical lubrication, contact, and steric and electrostatic forces, together with extreme stresses that may lead to solid deformation, require consideration of surface interactions and their tribological consequences in describing shear thickening.

　

Time-varying viscosity of viscoelastic materials has been found to induce complex rheology behaviors, which cannot be well characterized by the classical viscoelastic models. In this paper, different types of time-varying viscosity, namely, linearly varying viscosity, exponentially varying viscosity, and the proposed power-law viscosity are introduced with the applications to describing experimental data. Subsequently, these time-varying viscosities are embedded into the classical viscoelastic models. The relaxation and creep responses of the modified viscoelastic models are analytically derived and compared with the performance of the corresponding fractional models. The results indicate that the proposed power-law viscosity and the exponentially varying viscosity are capable of characterizing both thixotropy and rheopexy. The modified Maxwell model with power-law viscosity agrees well with the creep and relaxation responses of time-varying materials. It is also found that viscoelastic materials exhibiting thixotropy show faster rheological responses than the materials exhibiting rheopexy.