The role of deformability in determining the structural and mechanical properties of bubbles and emulsions.

We perform computational studies of jammed particle packings in two dimensions undergoing isotropic compression using the well-characterized soft particle (SP) model and deformable particle (DP) model that we developed for bubbles and emulsions. In the SP model, circular particles are allowed to overlap, generating purely repulsive forces. In the DP model, particles minimize their perimeter, while deforming at fixed area to avoid overlap during compression. We compare the structural and mechanical properties of jammed packings generated using the SP and DP models as a function of the packing fraction ρ, instead of the reduced number density φ. We show that near jamming onset the excess contact number Δz = z - zJ and shear modulus G scale as Δρ0.5 in the large system limit for both models, where Δρ = ρ - ρJ and zJ ≈ 4 and ρJ ≈ 0.842 are the values at jamming onset. Δz and G for the SP and DP models begin to differ for ρ ⪆ 0.88. In this regime, Δz ∼ G can be described by a sum of two power-laws in Δρ, i.e. Δz ∼ G ∼ C0Δρ0.5 + C1Δρ1.0 to lowest order. We show that the ratio C1/C0 is much larger for the DP model compared to that for the SP model. We also characterize the void space in jammed packings as a function of ρ. We find that the DP model can describe the formation of Plateau borders as ρ → 1. We further show that the results for z and the shape factor A versus ρ for the DP model agree with recent experimental studies of foams and emulsions.

Generality of shear thickening in dense suspensions.

Suspensions are of wide interest and form the basis for many smart fluids. For most suspensions, the viscosity decreases with increasing shear rate, that is, they shear thin. Few are reported to do the opposite, that is, shear thicken, despite the longstanding expectation that shear thickening is a generic type of suspension behaviour. Here we resolve this apparent contradiction. We demonstrate that shear thickening can be masked by a yield stress and can be recovered when the yield stress is decreased below a threshold. We show the generality of this argument and quantify the threshold in rheology experiments where we control yield stresses arising from a variety of sources, such as attractions from particle surface interactions, induced dipoles from applied electric and magnetic fields, as well as confinement of hard particles at high packing fractions. These findings open up possibilities for the design of smart suspensions that combine shear thickening with electro- or magnetorheological response.