An investigation has been made of the conditions in which the stress-strain relationship for stable suspensions of hard, discrete, non-interacting spherical particles in a Newtonian liquid is dependent upon the size distribution of the dispersed phase. Stable suspensions of spherical particles were found t o behave as Newtonian fluids up t o solid concentrations of a t least 20 yo by volume when the dispersed phase possessed a continuous size-distribution curve. In circumstances where effects other than those due t o physical interaction between particles were eliminated , stable suspensions of spherical material composed of varying proportions of two closely-sized fractions, the average diameters of which were widely different, behaved as anomalous fluids a t solid concentrations greater than 7.5 yo by volume over the range of shear rate investigated. At a given rate of shear they behaved similarly t o suspensions of the large spherical particles in a liquid consisting of a suspension of the small particles. This non-Newtonian behaviour cannot at present be satisfactorily explained but i t appears that the aggregate surface area and the degree of packing of the dispersed phase have no influence upon the relative viscosity.
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