Transient Dynamics of Concentrated Particulate Suspensions Under Shear

This thesis demonstrates the first use of high-speed ultrasound imaging to non-invasively probe how the interior of a dense suspension responds to impact. Suspensions of small solid particles in a simple liquid can generate a rich set of dynamic phenomena that are of fundamental scientific interest because they do not conform to the typical behavior expected of either solids or liquids. Most remarkable is the highly counter-intuitive ability of concentrated suspensions to strongly thicken a...