A differential model for the rheological properties of concentrated suspensions with weakly viscoelastic matrices

• Published in: Rheologica acta 2010-02, Vol.49 (2), p.169-176
• Main Authors: Tanner, Roger I., Qi, Fuzhong, Housiadas, Kostas D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Complex Fluids and Microfluidics; Computational fluid dynamics; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; Fluids; Food Science; Heterogeneous liquids: suspensions, dispersions, emulsions, pastes, slurries, foams, block copolymers, etc; Material form; Materials Science; Mechanical Engineering; Normal stress measurements; Original Contribution; Physics; Polymer Sciences; Properties (attributes); Rheological properties; Rheology; Soft and Granular Matter; Techniques and apparatus; Viscoelastic fluids; Viscoelasticity
• ISSN: 0035-4511; 1435-1528
• DOI: 10.1007/s00397-009-0404-6

A model for the rheological properties of a concentrated suspension in weakly viscoelastic fluid matrices is proposed. The model is derived according to the Roscoe differential procedure described in 1952. The analytical results produced recently by Greco et al. (J Non-Newton Fluid Mech 147:1–10, 2007 ) and Housiadas and Tanner (J Non-Newton Fluid Mech 162:88–92, 2009 ) for dilute suspensions of neutrally buoyant, non-Brownian rigid spheres in weakly viscoelastic matrix fluids are the key results which are used as a base to predict the properties of concentrated suspensions. The results are compared with the few available experimental data from the literature, showing promising trends for the viscometric properties of the suspensions. In particular, one sees the rapidly increasing value of −N 2 /N 1 as concentration increases.