Pipeline transport of coarse mineral suspensions displaying shear thickening

Transport properties of concentrated suspensions are of interest to many industries. Mineral slurries at higher solids concentrations have shown some rheologically interesting characteristics such as shear thickening, the increase of viscosity of a multi-phase mixture with increasing shear rate. The general literature on the rheology of suspensions records the presence of yield stresses, shear thinning and normal stress differences. Little is said specifically about shear thickening behaviour except for colloidal suspensions. The aim of this study is to examine the behaviour of coarse shear thickening suspensions and determine the causes of this phenomenon. The study intended to achieve the following objectives to; develop the appropriate techniques for rheometric studies of shear thickening suspensions; investigate the nature of particle-fluid interaction; develop a model of shear thickening behaviour as it occurs in non-colloidal suspensions and to develop a method of applying the rheology results to flows and flow geometries of practical relevance. The effects of wall slip dominate much of the literature of shear thickening materials. To investigate this aspect a significant portion of the experimental work examined the effect of shear thickening on torsional flow. The rheogram produced from parallel plate rheometry was reassessed as a non-controlled flow and a rheology model dependant analysis demonstrated that the effects of slip are considerably more problematic for shear thickening suspensions, particularly as wall slip is an increasing function of shear stress. As a consequence of the rheometric method described above it was observed that the rate of change of the first normal stress difference, N1, with shear rate changes as shear thickening commences for non-colloidal suspensions. N1 is initially negative and is increasingly negative at low shear rates. Additional rheometric analysis examined the transient effects in the behaviour of a non-colloidal shear thickening suspension. By employing large angle oscillating strain tests the strain required to initiate a shear thickening response was determined. Coherent back scattering of laser light experiments were able to show the change in orientation of the particles with respect to its rotation around the vorticity axis. After a viscosity minimum was reached the orientation became more random as particle rotation and lamina disruption occurred. This was considered to be the cause of the measured shear thickening. A model of shear thickening in concentrated, non-colloidal suspensions of non-spherical particles was developed. Based on hydrodynamic interaction in the Stokes flow regime, the flow of interstitial fluid subjected the adjacent particles to lubricating and Couette type forces, acting as a couple. When a series of force balances on a particle contained between two moving laminae are conducted as a time sequence, the particle orientation and motion can be observed. The model has qualitative agreement with several aspects of the experimentally observed behaviour of shear thickening suspensions, such as viscosity change with shear rate and concentration, and the first normal stress difference increasing with shear rate. Pipe line flow experiments were conducted on the model suspension. Particle settling produces unusual patterns in shear thickening suspensions, with an annulus of delayed settling near the wall