Fractal approaches to characterize the structure of capillary suspensions using rheology and confocal microscopy.

The rheological properties of a particle suspension can be substantially altered by adding a small amount of a secondary fluid that is immiscible with the bulk phase. The drastic change in the strength of these capillary suspensions arises due to the capillary forces, induced by the added liquid, leading to a percolating particle network. Using rheological scaling models, fractal dimensions are deduced from the yield stress and from oscillatory strain amplitude sweep data as function of the solid volume fraction.