Consolidation behavior of flocculated alumina suspensions

• The consolidation behavior of flocculated alumina suspensions was analyzed as a function of the interparticle energy. Consolidation was performed by a centrifugal force field or by gravity and both the time dependent and equilibrium density profiles were measured by a gamma ray absorption technique. The interparticle energy at contact was controlled by adsorbing fatty acids of varying molecular weight at the alumina/decalin interface. We found that strongly attractive interactions result in a particle network which resists consolidation and shows compressible behavior over a large stress range. The most weakly flocculated suspension showed an essentially incompressible, homogeneous density profile after consolidation at different centrifugal speeds. We also found a significant variation in the maximum volume fraction, m, obtained, with m 0.54 for the most strongly flocculated suspension to m 0.63 for the most weakly flocculated suspension. The compressive yield stresses show a behavior which can be fitted to a modified power law. In this paper, we discuss possible correlations between the fitting parameters and physical properties of the flocculated suspensions.

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