Dynamic response of shear thickening fluid reinforced with SiC nanowires under high strain rates

In this letter, SiC nanowires were adopted to reinforce the nanoparticle-based shear thickening fluid (STF) to improve its rheological properties. The reinforced STF showed a significant increase in viscosity. A Split-Hopkinson pressure bar was implemented to evaluate the dynamic response of STF at strain rates in the range of 3 × 103–1.2 × 104/s. For the pure STF, the flow stress reaches a saturation value with increasing strain rates and shows almost no strain rate sensitivity, whereas the flow stress of the reinforced STF increases with strain rates, and the strain rate sensitivity to flow stress is obvious owing to the resistance of nanowires. The essence of this study is to reveal that there is a limiting value of the flow stress of traditional nanoparticle-based STF at high strain rates due to the lubrication force among particles. SiC nanowires can be used to break this limitation of the nanoparticle-based STF.