Rheological behavior during squeeze flow of concentrated suspensions of spheres in different viscosities silicone oils

Abstract Squeeze flow is one of the main techniques used to evaluate the rheological behaviour of mortars. This type of material can be considered as a reactive, heterogeneous and concentrated suspension with a wide range of particle sizes, and its rheological behaviour is influenced by the quantity and characteristics of its constituents. In order to evaluate some phenomena in detail, it is interesting to reduce the factors that influence the flow of the material. Thus, this paper assesses the rheological behaviour of concentrated suspensions of macroscopic glass spheres in Newtonian fluids with different viscosities (silicone oils: 100, 1000 e 10000 cSt) aiming to analyse liquid and solid interactions as well as the occurrence of phase separation. Suspensions with 60% and 70%vol of spheres were subjected to squeeze flow tests at different displacement rates (0.01, 0.1 and 1.0 mm/s). The increase in liquid content changed the main phenomena governing the flow: (i) at low liquid volume, friction between particles, liquid lubrication capacity and cohesion generated by meniscus formation have a major effect; while (ii) in suspensions with liquid content enough to separate the particles, the fluid viscosity, drag force and permeability of the granular system determine the rheological behaviour of the suspension and the occurrence of phase separation.