Observation of carbon black agglomerate dispersion in simple shear flows

Abstract

Abstract Experiments aimed at studying the mechanisms of agglomerate breakup due to the application of a simple shear flow field were performed in a cone and plate transparent device. Spherical compacts of carbon black (diameters 1‐2 mm) in a range of different porosites were used in the experiments. Two distinct breakup mechanisms, denoted as “rupture” and “erosion”, were observed. The critical stress for erosion was found to be smaller than that for rupture. Once erosion starts, it continues for very long times. Rupture occurs shortly after reaching a critical stress and concludes abruptly. For this analysis of rupture, the dimen‐sionless group \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$\alpha {\rm = \{ }\eta {\rm .}\mathop \gamma \limits^{\rm .} {\rm /K'}\phi ^{\rm 4} {\rm \} }$\end{document} , which is the ratio of applied stress to cohesive strength, was found to be a significant parameter for determining the final particle size distribution. The size analysis of fragments produced by shearing pellets for 1 minute showed a lognormal distribution function.