The Rheology of Concentrated Suspensions

Research program on the rheological properties of flowing suspensions. The primary purpose of the research supported by this grant was to study the flow characteristics of concentrated suspensions of non-colloidal solid particles and thereby construct a comprehensive and robust theoretical framework for modeling such systems quantitatively. At first glance, this seemed like a modest goal, not difficult to achieve, given that such suspensions were viewed simply as Newtonian fluids with an effective viscosity equal to the product of the viscosity of the suspending fluid times a function of the particle volume fraction. But thanks to the research findings of the Principal Investigator and of his Associates, made possible by the steady and continuous support which the PI received from the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, the subject is now seen to be more complicated and therefore much more interesting in that concentrated suspensions have been shown to exhibit fascinating and unique rheological properties of their own that have no counterpart in flowing Newtonian or even non-Newtonian (polymeric) fluids. In fact, it is generally acknowledged that, as the result of these investigations for which the PI received the 2001 National Medal of Science, our understanding of how suspensions behave under flow is far more detailed and comprehensive than was the case even as recently as a decade ago. Thus, given that the flow of suspensions plays a crucial role in many diverse physical processes, our work has had a major and lasting impact in a subject having both fundamental as well as practical importance.