Rheological experiments under steady and oscillatory shear were conducted for fumed silica suspen- sions in polyethylene glycol. Under steady shear the shear-thinning and thickening response were exhibited and the flow exponent N was determined. With the increase of concentration the flow exponent N showed a rapid increase, and it increased dramatically when the discontinuous shear-thickening took place. Oscillatory shear experiments were conducted at constant frequency and constant amplitude strain, respectively. The shear-thinning and the discontinuous shear-thickening behavior were observed under different constant frequencies from 10 to 80 rad/s. The correlation between complex modulus (G*) and sweep frequency (ω) was illuminated at γ =750%. It was found that the correlation between G* and ω could be fitted by equation: G*∝ωn. The indexes in shear-thinning region and shear-thickening were determined. The indexes were similar to some extent at shear-thinning region and increased dramati- cally to a much higher value when the shear-thickening occurred,especially at higher weight fractions. The behaviors can be qualitatively explained as follows: the shear-thinning owes to decrease of viscos- ity, which results from disruption of the aggregates; the cluster theory attributes the shear-thickening to the formation of metastable, flow induced clusters, which block the system.
YANG HaiLinRUAN JianMingZOU JianPengWU QiuMeiZHOU ZhongChengZHOU ZhiHua
HA-ZrO2(CaO)/316L fibre composites were successfully fabricated with vacuum sintering method and their properties and toughening mechanism were studied. The results showed that HA-ZrO2(CaO)/316L fibre biocomposite having 20 vol% fibres had optimal comprehensive properties with bending strength, Young's modulus, fracture toughness and relative density equal to 140.1 MPa, 117.8 GPa, 5.81 MPa·m1/2 and 87.1%, respectively. The research also addressed that different volume ratios of the composites led to different metallographic microstructures, and that metallographic morphologies change regularly with volume ratios of the composites. 316L fibres were distributed randomly and evenly in the composites and the integration circumstance of the two phases was very well since there were no obvious flaws or pores in the composites. Two toughening mechanisms including ZrO2 phase transformation toughening mechanism and fibre pulling-out toughening mechanism existed in the compsites with the latter being the main toughening mechanism.
ZOU JianPeng1, HE ZeQiang2, ZHOU ZhongCheng1, HUANG BaiYun1, CHEN QiYuan3 & RUAN JianMing1 1 State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China