Suspensions in a tilted trough: second normal stress difference

We measure the second normal-stress difference in suspensions of non-Brownian neutrally buoyant rigid spheres dispersed in a Newtonian fluid. We use a method inspired by Wineman & Pipkin (Acta Mechanica, vol. 2, 1966, pp. 104-115) and Tanner (Trans. Soc. Rheol., vol. 14, 1970, pp. 483-507), which relies on the examination of the shape of the suspension free surface in a tilted trough flow. The second normal-stress difference is found to be negative and linear in shear stress. The ratio of the second normal-stress difference to shear stress increases with increasing volume fraction. A clear behavioural change exhibiting a strong (approximately linear) growth in the magnitude of this ratio with volume fraction is seen above a volume fraction of 0.22. By comparing our results with previous data obtained for the same batch of spheres by Boyer, Pouliquen & Guazzeli (J. Fluid Mech., 2011, doi:10.1017/jfm.2011.272), the ratio of the first normal-stress difference to the shear stress is estimated and its magnitude is found to be very small.