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Signatures of shear thinning-thickening transition in steady shear flows of dense non-Brownian yield stress systems

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Abstract

Steady shear flows of dense athermal systems composed of soft disks are investigated via non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, from which we sort out links among the structure, dynamics, and shear rheology. The systems at rest are jammed packings of frictionless disks with a nonzero yield stress. Driven by low shear rates, the flows shear thin due to the presence of the nonzero yield stress, but transit to shear thickening above a crossover shear rate \(\dot \gamma _c \). At \(\dot \gamma _c \), we observe the strongest structural anisotropy in the pair distribution function, which serves as the structural signature of the shear thinning-thickening transition. We also observe dynamical signatures associated with the transition: At \(\dot \gamma _c \), scaling behaviors of both the mean squared displacement and relaxation time undergo apparent changes. By performing a simple energy analysis, we reveal an underlying condition for the shear thickening to occur: \(d(\ln T_g )/d(\ln \dot \gamma ) > 2\) with T g the kinetic temperature. This condition is confirmed by simulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry; Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale; Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Wen Zheng, Yu Shi & Ning Xu

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  1. Wen Zheng
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  2. Yu Shi
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  3. Ning Xu
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Correspondence to Ning Xu.

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Zheng, W., Shi, Y. & Xu, N. Signatures of shear thinning-thickening transition in steady shear flows of dense non-Brownian yield stress systems. Sci. China Chem. 58, 1013–1020 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-015-5335-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-015-5335-8

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