Rheology of concentrated suspensions of non-colloidal rigid fibres

Abstract

Pressure- and volume-imposed rheology is used to study suspensions of non-colloidal, rigid fibres in the concentrated regime for aspect ratios ranging from 3 to 15. The suspensions exhibit yield stresses. Subtracting these apparent yield stresses reveals a viscous scaling for both the shear and normal stresses. The variation in aspect ratio does not affect the friction coefficient (ratio of shear and normal stresses), but increasing the aspect ratio lowers the maximum volume fraction at which the suspension flows. Constitutive laws are proposed for the viscosities and the friction coefficient close to the jamming transition.