Discontinuous shear thickening in dry granular materials induced by non- Coulombian friction

D Dumont and FM Rocha and M Nicolas and O Pouliquen, PHYSICAL REVIEW FLUIDS, 10, 064302 (2025).

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.10.064302

Over the last decade, the physics of discontinuous shear thickening (DST) in dense suspensions has undergone a paradigm shift. Growing evidence indicates that it stems from a frictional transition at the particle scale induced by repulsive forces between the suspended grains. However, in dry granular materials, interparticle friction can also exhibit a transition when the grains are coated, typically with polymers or lubricants widely used in industry. In this work, we use discrete- element method simulations to demonstrate that DST occurs in dry granular materials when considering non-Coulombian behavior, where the interparticle friction varies with the contact normal force to mimic the influence of a coating. By performing pressure- and volume-imposed measurements, we reveal all regimes of dry shear thickening and present a mean-field model that predicts the observed scenarios by relating the bulk rheology to the microscopic friction law.

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