The role of shear in the transition from continuous shear thickening to discontinuous shear thickening

Dense non-Brownian suspension has rich rheology and is hard to understand, especially for distinguishing continuous shear thickening (CST) from discontinuous shear thickening (DST). By studying the shear stress dependent rheology of a well-known DST suspension of cornstarch in water, we find that the transition from CST to DST could occur not only by increasing the volume fraction phi but also by increasing the shear stress sigma. For the recovery process of jammed suspension, we observe that the shear activates the time-dependent nature of particle rearrangement. DST can then be interpreted as the consequence of shear-induced jamming. Based on the test data, we plot the schematic phase diagram in the phi-sigma plane and find out that phi and sigma perform almost the same effect on flow-state transition. (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.