THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PERMEABILITY THEORY APPLIED TO CONCENTRATED SUSPENSIONS

The problem concerned with delineating the behavior of concentrated suspensions may provide an opportunity to interpret the data by applying the Kozeny-Carman equation. This permeability equation is correlated with the Richardson-Zaki expression, and enables the variation of the Kozeny parameter, k, with suspension porosity to be established under sedimentation conditions. The variation of k with suspension composition is provided. The value of k previously determined when this method was applied to a wide variety of suspensions was shown to be greater than the approximate value of 5 normally quoted. The previous finding that the maximum sedimentation mass-transfer rate will never occur at a solids concentration greater than 25% vol. is tested using the experimental results.