A Shear Thickening Colloidal Suspension Functioning via Progressive Impact Jamming with Persistent Lubrication Layer

ABSTRACT From strong shear thickening (ST) to jamming, conventional shear thickening fluid (STF) systems have been thoroughly explored in the past few decades. A picture from hydrodynamics to lubrication breakdown and interparticle friction has been unveiled and verified in various studies for conventional STF systems. This work presents a well‐studied ionic liquid‐based shear thickening fluid (ILSTF) in an unexplored field of jamming dynamics, which demonstrates a lubricated nature not only in strong shear thickening, as characterized by the rheology test, but also in the jamming and even solidification process triggered by dynamic normal impact. A well‐fitted Modified Added Mass Model is built for jamming with the solid boundary, based on the classical Impact‐Activated Normal Solidification (IANS) framework. Impact jamming front propagates with a few nanometers’ thickness solvation layer lubricating the silica nanoparticles, before it decreases due to the squeezing induced by the gradual compression of increasing stress level on the jammed zone. This can be classified as a progressive jamming realm.