Rheological Characterization of Polyoxyethylene (POE) and Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC) Suspensions with Added Solids

The rheological properties of high molecular weight POE and CMC suspensions by adding micro-metric solid particles such as fibers or spheres were studied. The volume fraction, Phi, was varied between 0 and 0.4. Their rheological properties were obtained after fitting a Cross model. For POE suspending fluid with spherical particle, the behavior of the normalized steady shear viscosity, mu/mu(0), as function of the fraction volume followed a Thomas model. However, for CMC suspensions, mu/mu(0) seems to be lineal with F. For a pure fluid or a suspension with Phi = 0; 2, the suspension presented an elastic behavior whereas it was observed a viscous behavior when the volume fraction was increased.