Irreversible shear-activated aggregation in non-Brownian suspensions.

We have studied the effect of shear on the stability of suspensions made of non-Brownian solid particles. We demonstrate the existence of an irreversible transition where the solid particles aggregate at remarkably low volume fractions (phi approximately 0.1). This shear-induced aggregation is dramatic and exhibits a very sudden change in the viscosity, which increases sharply after a shear-dependent induction time. We show that this induction time is related exponentially to the shear rate, reflecting the importance of the hydrodynamic forces in reducing the repulsive energy barrier that prevents the particles from aggregating.