Shear thickening in granular suspensions: Interparticle friction and dynamically correlated clusters

We consider the shear rheology of concentrated suspensions of non-Brownian frictional particles. The key result of our study is the emergence of a pronounced shear-thickening regime, where frictionless particles would normally undergo shear thinning. We can clarify that shear thickening in our simulations is due to enhanced energy dissipation via frictional interparticle forces. Moreover, we evidence the formation of dynamically correlated particle clusters of size xi, which contribute to shear thickening via an increase in viscous dissipation. A scaling argument gives for the associated viscosity eta(nu) similar to xi(2), which is in very good agreement with the data.