Drastic slowdown of shear waves in unjammed granular suspensions

We present an experimental investigation of shear elastic wave propagation along the surface of a dense granular suspension. Using an ultrafast ultrasound scanner, we monitor the softening of the shear wave velocity inside the optically opaque medium as the driving amplitude increases. For such nonlinear behavior two regimes are found: in the first regime, we observe a significant shear modulus weakening, but without visible grain rearrangements. In the second regime, there is a clear grain rearrangement accompanied by a modulus decrease up to 88%. A friction model is proposed to describe the interplay between nonlinear elasticity and plasticity, which highlights the crucial effect of contact slipping before contact breaking. Investigation of these nonlinear shear waves may bridge the gap between two disjoint approaches for describing the dynamics near unjamming: linear elastic soft modes and nonlinear collisional shock.