Discontinuous and Dilatant Viscosity Behavior in Concentrated Suspensions. I. Observation of a Flow Instability

The rheological dilatancy of concentrated suspensions has been studied to determine the cause of this phenomenon. If monodisperse suspensions of polymeric resins are examined, dilatant viscosity behavior is transformed into a discontinuous viscosity behavior when the volume fraction of solids is raised above 0.50. Experimental evidence is presented which supports the hypothesis that the discontinuity is caused by a flow instability in which surfaces of spheres, packed in a two dimensional hexagonal packing at low shear rates, break up into less ordered arrays of spheres. Although various techniques have been used, white light diffraction from a suspension under shear provides the most dramatic evidence of the ordered packing of the spheres and the order-disorder transition at the instability point.