Deformation upon impact of a concentrated suspension drop

Abstract

We study the impact between a plate and a drop of non-colloidal solid particles suspended in a Newtonian liquid, with a specific attention to the case when the particle volume fraction, $\phi$, is close to - or even exceeds - the critical volume fraction, $\phi_c$, at which the steady effective viscosity of the suspension diverges. We use a specific concentration protocol together with an accurate determination of $\phi$ for each drop and we measure the deformation $\beta$ for different liquid viscosities, impact velocities and particle sizes. At low volume fractions, $\beta$ is found to follow closely an effective Newtonian behavior, which we determine by documenting the low deformation limit for a highly viscous Newtonian drop and characterizing the effective shear viscosity of our suspensions. By contrast, whereas the effective Newtonian approach predicts that $\beta$ vanishes at $\phi_c$, a finite deformation is observed for $\phi>\phi_c$. This finite deformation remains controlled by the suspending liquid viscosity and increases with increasing particle size, which suggests that the dilatancy of the particle phase is a key factor of the dissipation process close to and above $\phi_c$.