2026 Journal of Rheology Publication Award
TOP: Examples of cubic particles with tk = a ≈ 300µm (a) and hexahedral particles with tk ≈ 300 and a ≈ 270µm (b), imaged with an optical microscope. BOTTOM: a) Sketch of the experimental device used to study the viscous resuspension of cubic particles. b) View from above. The vertical laser sheet is shifted by a distance y0 < R1 from the radial plane (dashed black line). x is the horizontal position in the laser sheet and z is the vertical position. z = 0 is set by the mercury/suspension interface.
In this work, cubic particles were fabricated using a soft lithography technique and suspended in a Newtonian fluid. Rheometric experiments were conducted to determine the Einstein and Batchelor coefficients in the dilute and semidilute regimes, revealing stronger hydrodynamic interactions compared to spheres. In the concentrated regime, viscosity measurements as a function of shear stress exhibit shear-thinning behavior, which can be effectively captured by introducing a shear-dependent jamming volume fraction. The viscosity is significantly higher—or equivalently, the jamming fraction markedly lower—than in spherical particle suspensions.
Rheology of suspensions of cubic particles