ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses in a mainly qualitative way, the rheological behavior of colloidal suspensions in relation to different types and magnitudes of the interparticle forces. Rheological measurements can also be made in compression, but the term compression rheology, applied to concentrated suspensions, refers to the compressive yield properties of the particles interacting through repulsive or attractive interparticle forces. The structure of colloidal suspensions can be investigated by different scattering techniques such as light scattering, x-ray scattering, or small-angle neutron scattering. The rheological properties of concentrated suspensions are affected by the particle size distribution of the multimodal mixture and by the shape of the particles. Characterization and systematization of the rheological behavior of flocculated systems is a difficult task, due mainly to the nonequilibrium nature of the suspension structure. The viscoelastic response of a colloidally stable concentrated suspension is strong when the average distance between the suspended particles is of the same order as the range of the repulsive interparticle potential.
