Modeling the viscosity of polydisperse suspensions: Improvements in prediction of limiting behavior

Abstract

The present study develops a fully consistent extension of the approach pioneered by Farris [“Prediction of the viscosity of multimodal suspensions from unimodal viscosity data,” Trans. Soc. Rheol. 12, 281–301 (1968)] to describe the viscosity of polydisperse suspensions significantly improving upon our previous model [P. M. Mwasame, N. J. Wagner, and A. N. Beris, “Modeling the effects of polydispersity on the viscosity of noncolloidal hard sphere suspensions,” J. Rheol. 60, 225-240 (2016)]. The new model captures the Farris limit of large size differences between consecutive particle size classes in a suspension. Moreover, the new model includes a further generalization that enables its application to real, complex suspensions that deviate from ideal non-colloidal suspension behavior. The capability of the new model to predict the viscosity of complex suspensions is illustrated by comparison against experimental data.

Viscosity of protein-stabilized emulsions: Contributions of components and development of a semipredictive model

“…in Mwasame et al (2016b). However these models are mathematically complex and do not describe accurately our experimental results.…”

“…Models have been developed previously to predict the viscosity of suspensions of multimodal particles, for example in references Mendoza (2017) in Mwasame et al (2016b). However these models are mathematically complex and do not describe accurately our experimental results.…”

“…It should be noted that the lack of unifying definition of the volume fraction for soft colloids is a particularly relevant challenge when dealing with mixtures. An approach to address this problem could be to take the viscosity behaviour of one of the two components as a reference, and map the volume fraction of the other component to follow this reference viscosity Mwasame et al (2016b), but it would considerably increase the complexity of the model.…”

Proposition of extension of models relating rheological quantities and microscopic structure through the use of a double fractal structure

“…The attractive forces are also diverse with pure Van der Waals interaction 15,16 , Derjaguin, Landau, Verwey, and Overbeek like interaction 1,14,17 or capillary bridges 13,18,19 . Several types of behaviour can be assessed like shearthickening 20 or other viscosity dependence 21 . Even with the broad literature on this topic, the precise influence of the clusters on the rheological properties of the suspension remains an open question.…”

A polydisperse model for thixotropic elasto‐viscoplastic suspensions of aggregating particles using population balances

“…which agrees with the results up to four decimal places. The viscosity expression for polydisperse non-colloidal suspensions derived by Mwasame et al [38][39][40] uses the size distribution of the agglomerates in the form of abscissa (m i ) and weights (ω i ) of the quadrature,…”