Effect of the surface roughness and construction material on wall slip in the flow of concentrated suspensions

Recent studies on polyethylene, elastomers, and thermoplastics have revealed that the construction material and surface roughness are two important factors affecting wall slip. In this study, to determine the true rheological behavior of model concentrated suspensions, a multiple‐gap separation method was used in a parallel disk rheometer. The model suspensions studied were poly (methyl methacrylate) particles with an average particle size of 121.2 μm in hydroxyl‐terminated polybutadiene. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of disk R_a in the range of 0.49–1.51 μm and disk construction material on the wall slip and the true viscosity of the model concentrated suspensions. The wall slip velocity and the viscosity were found to be independent of R_a for particle size‐to‐disk R_a ratios of 80–247. Also, the true viscosity was found not to be affected by the rheometer surface construction material. Glass surfaces resulted in the highest slip velocity, whereas aluminum surfaces resulted in the lowest slip velocity. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 3341–3347, 2007