Experimental Studies on the Thixotropic Characteristics of Coal-Water Slurry

Coal-Water Slurry is a kind of solid-liquid suspensions, which has the characteristics of thixotropy.In this paper,the breaking up and the recovering of the structure of CWS is studied first.Then, a easy and simple, but accurate and reliable quantitative method of experiment is introduced to describe the thixotropy of CWS.
Studies of thixotropic characteristics of CWS will be in progress from two fields.One is the study of the process of thixotropy, the other is the study of results of thixotropy. In this paper, coefficient A(named structure breaking-up coefficieut) related to time is used to describe the process of thixotropy of CWS; another quantity AT (named absolute quantity of thixotropy) is used to describe the results of thixotropy of CWS. Three factors——shear rate, concentration and temperature of CWS which affect the thixotropy of CWS mainly-are studied. It is discovered that the increase in concentration and shear rate, and the decrease in temperature cause the increase of thixotropy of CWS while the process of thixotropy will be prolonged.