Rheology of dense suspensions of non-Brownian soft particles across flow regimes

This study investigates the rheological behavior of soft spherical particles across the jamming transition and within both viscous and inertial flow regimes. We extend the established granular rheology for hard sphere suspensions to develop a soft granular rheology by adjusting the critical volume fraction and friction coefficient to account for pressure variations, and by incorporating the combined effiects of viscous and inertial stress scales. This framework effectively characterizes dense suspensions across a broad spectrum of sizes and flow conditions, from colloidal to granular. The implications for suspension flow dynamics and sediment transport processes are also explored.