Proposition of extension of models relating rheological quantities and microscopic structure through the use of a double fractal structure

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new double fractal model for colloidal suspensions that links rheological behavior with microstructure, capturing cluster effects and aligning well with experimental data.

Contribution

The paper extends existing rheological models by incorporating a double fractal structure to account for cluster influence on microstructure-rheology relations.

Findings

Model recovers known percolation models

Captures cluster size effects

Shows close agreement with experimental data

Abstract

Colloidal suspensions and the relation between their rheology and their microstructure is investigated. The literature showed great evidence of the relation between rheological quantities and particle volume fraction, ignoring the influence of the cluster. We propose to extend previous models using a new double fractal structure which allows, first, to recover the well-known models on the case of percolated system and, second, to capture the influence of the cluster size. This new model emphasises the necessity of such structure to account for recent experimental results. Then, the model is compared with data coming from the literature and shows close agreement.