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Experiments concerning the effect of shear flow on the turbidity of a colloidal dispersion close to its gas-liquid critical point are described. Theory predicts that in the mean-field region, the turbidity of the sheared system relative to that of the quiescent dispersion is a function of a single dimensionless group that is proportional to \. ^-4 (\. is the shear rate and ^-1 is the correlation length of the quiescent dispersion at the given temperature). Experiments are found to be in accordance with this scaling behavior. Moreover, the experiments confirm the theoretically predicted dependence. As a model colloidal system, we used spherical silica particles coated with stearyl alcohol. When dissolved in benzene, these colloidal particles attract each other, due to the fact that benzene is a marginal solvent for the stearyl coating. These attractions give rise to a gas-liquid critical point.
Verduin et al. (Tue,) studied this question.