Rheology and Microstructure of Concentrated Suspensions of Plate-Shaped Colloidal Particles

91 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.The second type of clay particles have a smaller aspect ratio approximately equal to 8. These suspensions demonstrate shear thickening at $\phi \ge$ 0.50 and also have a shear history dependent elastic modulus, G$\sp\prime.$ In the shear thinning region G$\sp\prime$ decreases with increasing shear rate. In the shear thickening region the modulus increases rapidly. Since G$\sp\prime$ is related to particle alignment, these results imply that the particle alignment increases until thickening occurs. At that point the particles become highly misaligned. These alignment changes are confirmed by conductivity measurements.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD