Shear-Thickening Behavior of Concentrated Monodispersed Colloidal Suspensions

Concentrated colloidal suspensions of monodispersed silica particles exhibited shear-thickening when a highly viscous suspending media was prepared using ethylene glycol. Although the shear rate at which shear-thickening occurred decreased in accordance with increases in the suspending media viscosity, the shear stress at the onset of shear-thickening behavior occurred was defined regardless of the suspending media viscosity. In addition, based on the dependence of the critical shear stress on the square reciprocal of the particle size, it was found that shear-thickening behavior can be explained by the diffusion-friction-dominant model.