LAUSR

The flow behavior of a filled suspension consisting of ferrite particles suspended in a polypropylene matrix with and without the addition of a commercial dispersant (Solplus DP310) was studied. The composites were filled with 10, 20, 30, and 40 vol.%. Both capillary and parallel disk rotational flows were employed. On the one hand, dynamic results confirm general trends found for highly concentrated systems. The higher is the filler level, the lower is the linear viscoelastic domain. When adding the dispersant agent, it was shown a larger linear viscoelastic domain, lower moduli values and thus, lower viscosity. Also, the critical strain, G′ and G′′ showed a power law dependency on the volume fraction. On the other hand, the capillary results showed no dependency of the flow properties on the die. Thus, no slip of the suspension at the wall was observed. Actually, this experimental finding elucidated that the significant decrease on viscosity produced by the addition of the dispersant agent at 40 vol.% is principally due to lubricant effects and not at all to slip contributions. The results also reveal three distinct flow regimes. Low, moderate, and high shear rates lead to different microstructure under flow.