Shear thickening in colloidal dispersions

known as “oobleck” after the complex fluid in one of Dr. Seuss’s classic children’s books arises from their transition from fluid-like to solid-like behavior when stressed. The viscous liquid that emerges from a roughly 2-to-1 (by volume) combination of starch to water can be poured into one’s hand. When squeezed, the liquid morphs into a doughy paste that can be formed into shapes, only to “melt” into a puddle when the applied stress is relieved. Internet videos show people running across a large pool of the stuff, only to sink once they stop in place, and “monsters” that grow out of the mixture when it’s acoustically vibrated (for an example, see the online version of this article). Shear-thickening fluids certainly entertain and spark our curiosity, but their effect can also vex industrial processes by fouling pipes and spraying equipment, for instance. And yet, when engineered into composite materials, STFs can be controlled and harnessed for such exotic applications as shockabsorptive skis and the soft body armor discussed in box 1. Engineers and colloid scientists have wrestled with the scientific and practical problems of shear-thickening colloidal dispersions—typically composed of condensed polymers, metals, or oxides suspended in a liquid—for more than a century. More recently, the physics community has explored the highly nonlinear materials in the context of jamming1 (see the article by Anita Mehta, Gary Barker, and JeanMarc Luck in PHYSICS TODAY, May 2009, page 40) and the more general study of colloids as model systems for understanding soft condensed matter. Hard-sphere colloids are the “hydrogen atom” of colloidal dispersions. Because of their greater size and interaction times compared with atomic and molecular systems, colloidal dispersions are often well suited for optical microscopy and scattering experiments using light, x rays, and neutrons. That makes the dispersions, beyond their own intrinsic technological importance, ideal models for exploring equilibrium and near-equilibrium phenomena of interest in atomic and molecular physics—for example, phase behavior and “dynamical arrest,” in which particles stop moving collectively at the glass transition. The relevance of colloids to atomic and molecular systems breaks down, though, for highly nonequilibrium phenomena. Indeed, shear thickening in strongly flowing colloidal dispersions may be among the most spectacular, and elucidating, examples of the differences between the systems.