Revista de ciencias e ingeniería de materiales

Shear Stresses during the Flow of Structured Suspensions: Accounting for the Formation of Trimers

Abstract

AI Levinsky*

A semi-empirical equation has been derived that describes the dependence of the shear stress on the shear rate during the flow of a onecomponent suspension. The suspension is considered as consisting of three fractions: single grains, their dimers and trimmers, between which equilibrium is established, depending on the shear rate. The equation is based on Krieger's formula generalized to the case of multicomponent suspensions. The derived equation well approximates the experimental data, including systems for which pseudoplastic behavior is replaced by dilatant behavior and vice versa.