Advances in Shear Thickening Fluids: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Directions
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Shear thickening fluids (STFs) are adaptive materials which exhibit an abrupt increase in the flow resistivity under applied shear stress or shear rate allows the rapid transitions from fluidlike to highly resistant states. This unique response has driven their development for impact protection, vibration damping, soft robotics, biomedical systems and other adaptive technologies. There have been significant advancements in STF research but the links between particle scale interactions, formulation variables, rheological response, processing conditions and application-level performance have not been sufficiently integrated. Reproducibility, long term stability and scalable manufacturing remain limitations to realistic deployment. A critical and integrated evaluation of STFs is presented, relating microstructure, rheological mechanisms, formulation, processing and functional performance into a common framework. The review first discusses the main mechanisms of shear thickening, namely hydrodynamic interactions, hydrocluster formation, frictional contact activation and stress dependent jamming and then critically reviews constitutive and theoretical models used for description of continuous and discontinuous shear thickening. Then, we discuss the effect of particle size and shape, volume fraction, surface chemistry, carrier fluid properties, temperature, confinement and boundary conditions on particle rearrangement, formation of frictional contacts, jamming and macroscopic rheology. Formulation stability, sedimentation, reproducibility, processing and scale-up, as well as experimental and computational approaches to characterize and predict STF behavior are emphasized. Recent advances in STF-based composites
Source: ChemRxiv
Language: English
Subfield: Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes
Field: Chemical Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7211949287