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The rheological dilatancy of concentrated suspensions has been studied to determine the cause of this phenomenon. If monodisperse suspensions of polymeric resins are examined, dilatant viscosity behavior is transformed into a discontinuous viscosity behavior when the volume fraction of solids is raised above 0.50. Experimental evidence is presented which supports the hypothesis that the discontinuity is caused by a flow instability in which surfaces of spheres, packed in a two dimensional hexagonal packing at low shear rates, break up into less ordered arrays of spheres. Although various techniques have been used, white light diffraction from a suspension under shear provides the most dramatic evidence of the ordered packing of the spheres and the order-disorder transition at the instability point.
Richard L. Hoffman (Wed,) studied this question.