VISCOELASTIC PROPERTIES OF CONCENTRATED SHEAR-THICKENING DISPERSIONS

The viscoelastic properties of electrostatically stabilized concentrated dispersions of silica and of glass particles in a glycerol/water mixture are studied by oscillatory shear measurements. These dispersions are shear-thickening in steady shear flow. At most frequencies the loss modulus is found to dominate the storage modulus. At certain critical combinations of deformation amplitude and frequency the response signal becomes distorted, containing higher harmonics. This phenomenon can be ascribed to flow blockage, closely related to shear thickening in steady shear flow. When plotting the critical deformation against the frequency, three different regions can be detected. At low frequencies there is the steady shear flow limit, at intermediate frequencies double-layer overlap causes nonlinearity in the response signal, and at high frequencies there is a region where the critical deformation for flow blockage is a system-dependent function of the frequency, but is independent of the volume fraction. The magnitudes of the storage moduli are found to be in reasonable agreement with theoretical predictions. © 1992.