Real-time rheological investigation of complex behaviour in cornstarch suspensions

Cornstarch suspensions are well known for their surprising property of being able to support a person running across the surface of a pool of the suspension — a phenomenon called shear jamming. This phenomenon has far reaching importance across industries involving granular and colloidal solids transport. In this thesis, the design of a novel custom rheometer for the investigation of these suspensions is described. The results of applying the custom rheometer are shown and analysed in the context of the popular Wyart-Cates model of jamming suspensions. The work confirms the presence of unsteady behaviour in these suspensions, but only for a narrow range of particle concentrations; and of lower density than previously reported. This highlights some of the weaknesses of the WC model, especially as applied to suspensions of polydisperse anisometric particles such as cornstarch (deviating from monodisperse hard spheres).

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral-pg

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Strathclyde

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Boyle, Christopher

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Haw, Mark
• Lue, Leo

DOI

10.48730/p6pd-3565

Identifier

T16220

Author Identifier

201782993

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:strathclyde:x633f1421