Yield Stress of Clay–Water Systems

Abstract

I HAVE shown elsewhere¹ that the variation of specific viscosity (η_sp) with solid content (c) for concentrated sodium montmorillonite sols follows the Schultz–Blatschke relation² for systems of anisometric particles: [η], the ‘intrinsic viscosity’, depends on the dissymmetry (p) of the dispersed and solvated clay platelets ; while k′ represents the particle–particle interaction at unit dissymmetry. At any sol concentration, η_sp = η_sp – C[η] will thus measure the contribution of this latter factor to the specific viscosity.