Flow behavior of polymerizable ceramic suspensions as function of ceramic volume fraction and temperature

The effect of volume fraction and temperature on flow behavior is reported for suspensions of coarse silica powders in two non-aqueous polymerizable solutions. The concentration dependence of the viscosity at temperatures 25–75 °C can be reduced to a single Krieger–Dougherty curve for all suspensions. The temperature dependence of viscosity for suspensions with 60 vol% silica could be fit to an Arrhenius equation. The suspensions had a larger apparent activation energy than the suspension medium. This could be explained in terms of thermal dilution, where the higher thermal expansion of the liquid reduces the solids loading for very concentrated suspensions.