Paper Number
MC5 

Session
Rheology of Soil, Mud and Construction Materials

Title
Understanding the rheology of kaolinite clay suspensions using Bayesian inference

Presentation Date and Time
October 10, 2022 (Monday) 11:10

Track / Room
Track 7 / Ontario

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Ran, Ranjiangshang (University of Pennsylvania, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics)
2. Pradeep, Shravan (University of Pennsylvania, Earth and Environmental Sciences)
3. Kosgodagan Acharige, Sebastien (University of Pennsylvania, Department of Earth and Environmental Science)
4. Blackwell, Brendan (University of Pennsylvania, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics)
5. Christoph, Kammer (University of Pennsylvania, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics)
6. Jerolmack, Doug J. (University of Pennsylvania)
7. Arratia, Paulo E. (University of Pennsylvania, Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Ranjiangshang Ran¹, Shravan Pradeep², Sebastien Kosgodagan Acharige², Brendan Blackwell¹, Kammer Christoph¹, Doug J. Jerolmack² and Paulo E. Arratia^1
1Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; ²Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Speaker / Presenter 
Pradeep, Shravan

Keywords
colloids; mud rheology; suspensions

Text of Abstract
Mud, a mixture of fine-grained particles (sand, silt, and clay) in water, exhibits complex rheology that is crucial for both natural (mudslide, soil erosion etc.) and industrial processes (civil construction, oil drilling etc.). The rheology of mud is dominated by the attractive nature of clay minerals, since these charged plated-shaped constituents tend to aggregate and form gel-like structures, leading to distinct rheological features from hard-sphere suspensions.. Here, we experimentally examine the flow behavior of kaolinite clay suspensions using steady shear rheology; the flow curves exhibit both yield stress and rheological hysteresis behaviors for various kaolinite volume fractions. A structure-dependent viscoelastic model using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) fit, a Bayesian inference method, is employed to explain the observed rheological behavior. The comparison of inherent relaxation timescales suggests that kaolinite clay suspensions are strongly viscoelastic and weakly thixotropic at relatively low volume fractions, while being almost fully thixotropic, or inelastic. At high volume fractions. Our results provide insights for developing powerful predictive models of natural materials, like mud and clay, and can be extended to other known structured fluids.