Contents

## **Preface XI**


Darvin Ervey Jimenez-Sánchez, Montserrat Calderón-Santoyo, Laetitia Picart-Palmade, Pedro Ulises Bautista Rosales, Julio Cesar Barros-Castillo and Juan Arturo Ragazzo-Sánchez

### **Section 3 Suspensions, Colloids and Granular Materials 133**

Chapter 7 **Interparticle Interaction Effects in Polymer Suspensions 135** Nico Laufer, Harald Hansmann, Christian Boss and Stefan Ofe

Preface

sign, production, and shipping phases.

est for a variety of problems.

defined as "intelligent fluids."

understood.

Rheology is the science that studies the flow behavior of materials, whether in a solid or liquid state, under the application of a stress or deformation to obtain a response to an applied force. Rheology has some wide application areas that include foods, textiles, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and polymers, among others. In polymers, rheology has become an impor‐ tant tool to understand the behavior of polymers under processing conditions, and to help to design equipment such as injectors, extruders, and other polymer processing equipment.

In diluted suspension applications and colloidal dispersions, rheological behavior is a rele‐ vant topic mainly in concentrated materials because of its high theoretical and experimental complexity. Research work in this field is of high industrial importance especially in the de‐

Also, mathematical modeling in research work has been developed in a particular way so that the modeling of complex phenomena such as thixotropy or thinning generates an inter‐

Special studies in materials rheology, where it depends on the nature of the stimulus to which it responds, are those that show magnetorheological and electrorheological properties (depending on magnetics or electrical fields). These materials are created by permeable sus‐ pended particles in a medium that is either magnetic or conducting according to the case, and react to external stimuli by returning to their initial conditions. They recover their origi‐ nal property, repeating this process many times without deterioration; therefore, they are

Another area of application of rheology in polymers is to help understand the structure–prop‐ erty relationship by means of changes in molecular weight, molecular weight distribution, morphology, melt degradation, and performance under processing conditions, among others. There are several ways to evaluate rheological behavior, but mainly it is assessed to obtain

The present book is divided into three sections: "Advances in new rheology applications," "Polymers and biopolymers rheology," and "Suspensions, colloids and granular materials rheology," covering several application areas, interpretation of results, mathematical mod‐ els, as well as determining other areas where rheology and rheological phenomena can be

The first section presents work that can be regarded as a novelty, mainly trying to explain phenomena that are not often reported in rheology, in addition to developing new materi‐ als. The second section focuses on works concerning the rheology of polymers and biopoly‐

rheological curves, which can be carried out in rotational, oscillatory, or creep mode.

#### Chapter 8 **Rheology of Highly Filled Polymers 153** Christian Kukla, Ivica Duretek, Joamin Gonzalez-Gutierrez and Clemens Holzer
