Shear thickening as a consequence of an acoustic resonance in sheared colloidal crystals

A model is presented that predicts the critical shear rate of shear thickening of soft sphere colloidal suspensions. It is based on the idea that shear in a colloidal crystal leads to a periodic variation of the elastic modulus with time. At a specific shear rate an acoustic resonance occurs which leads to an increase of the viscosity. Good agreement with experimental results could be obtained by fitting the single parameter of the model