Kinetic theory of discontinuous shear thickening for a dilute gas-solid suspension

Abstract

A kinetic theory for a dilute gas-solid suspension under a simple shear is developed. With the aid of the corresponding Boltzmann equation, it is found that the flow curve (stress-strain rate relation) has a S-shape as a crossover from the Newtonian to the Bagnoldian for a granular suspension or from the Newtonian to a fluid having a viscosity proportional to the square of the shear rate for a suspension consisting of elastic particles. The existence of the S-shape in the flow curve directly leads to a discontinuous shear thickening (DST). This DST corresponds to the discontinuous transition of the kinetic temperature between a quenched state and an ignited state. The results of the event-driven Langevin simulation of hard spheres perfectly agree with the theoretical results without any fitting parameter. The simulation confirms that the DST takes place in the linearly unstable region of the uniformly sheared state.