A procedure is presented for converting torque-speed plots obtained from experiments using discs rotating rapidly in shear thinning materials into information on the viscosity function. The method is based on an exact boundary-layer solution for the power-law model and on the concept of pseudo-similarity of nonNewtonian flows. It enables the rheological behaviour to be evaluated at very high shear rates. Experimental data for concentrated shear-thinning kaolin suspensions at shear rates from 400 to 2-10Ss -1 are compared with values of the viscosity function obtained from customary viscometers of the Brookfield and Couette type.Key words: Viscosity function, rotating disc rheometry, high shear rate, kaolin suspension
I. IntroduetionCommercially available rheometers usually allow measurements to be made in the range of shear rates from 1 to 1000s-l; with special instruments and for certain types of fluids it is possible to obtain data outside this interval.A special part of rheodynamics concerns flows at high shear rates and, in particular, under extreme loads such as in lubricated bearings. However, it is often overlooked that during rapid flow past solid bodies or during their motion through fluids considerable velocity changes take place in relatively thin boundary layers, where the velocity gradient may achieve values up to the order of 106s -1. Such conditions are met even in common engineering practice, for example on the blades of high-speed agitators. The rheological data necessary for describing the flow in these regions are usually not available, especially when the fluids are non-Newtonian.The realization of viscometric flows at high shear rates is not easy; end devices are usually used in which the fluid sample is placed into an extremely narrow gap between a stationary and a rapidly moving wall. It taust be taken into consideration that in order to obtain a shear rate of 10Ss -1 within a 0.1 mm gap a relative velocity of 10 m's -1 is required. Thus, the geometric precision of the apparatus taust be extremely high. Moreover, such measurements can be influenced by various side effects, such as nonisothermicity due to high dissipation rates of mechanical energy, or inertial forces which may lead, for example, to the formation of Taylor vortices; in microheterogeneous fluids phase separation 120 may occur. Such devices are certainly unsuitable for the rheometrical characterization of dispersions containing coarse particles.For investigating the rheological properties at high shear rates we therefore propose to employ flow situations in which such shear rates occur naturally. In this context flows past solid walls under laminar conditions can be considered. For these, an efficient (boundary-layer) theory of flow is known to be valid and the corresponding equations of motion can in many cases be solved for a power-law model for the purely viscous behaviour:(1)The purpose of such a solution is usually to determine relations between kinematic and dynamic quantities of practical interest (such as the...