Rheology of Polydisperse non-Spherical Graphite Particles Suspended in Mineral Oil

Abstract

We study the role of filler concentration and microphysics on the rheology of polydisperse flake-graphite particles suspended in Newtonian mineral oil. Under steady shear, our samples exhibit shear thinning and yielding behaviour is observed for volume fractions $\varphi >0.18$. Time-temperature superposition was observed using an Arrhenius-type horizontal shift factor, giving a flow activation energy that is dependent on the graphite volume fraction, suggesting concentration-dependent contributions to relaxation processes in the suspensions. The flow curves are fitted by a constraint-based model, indicating that the flow behaviour is controlled by frictional and adhesive contacts, with the model suggesting that the adhesive stress is temperature dependent.

References in corpus (2)

• Jamming of frictional spheres and random loose packing
• Turning a yield-stress calcite suspension into a shear-thickening one by tuning inter-particle friction

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