Experimental studies of wave action on the suspension of montmorillonite clay

The paper presents the results of complex studies of influence of wave technologies on physical and mechanical properties of fine-dispersed montmorillonite suspensions in laboratory conditions at Research Center for Nonlinear Wave Mechanics and Technology Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is shown that wave processing by means of hydrodynamic flow type generators with tangential and radial channels and flat-type generators with cylindrical bodies of flow resulted in substantially increased dynamic shear stress, the number of particles in the 1-2 µm solution has grown 2.5 times. This means that the wave processing of the clay suspension leads to increasing of the colloid fraction, and, consequently, to improvement of the suspension quality, to decrease in the clay powder consumption, and also to several times reduced preparing time, compared to conventional technology. It is demonstrated that the main contribution to achieve high efficiency of wave processing is made by nonlinear wave and cavitation processes that run in the flowing part of hydrodynamic generators.