Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The flow of hard sphere-like suspensions near close packing is explored. The change in viscosity with stress and volume fraction shows that at volume fractions above 0.5 shear thickening occurs and that the characteristic shear rates for shear thinning and shear thickening decrease rapidly above this volume fraction. The creep compliance is well characterized by a stretched exponential relaxation time spectrum above volume fractions of 0.52. These results suggest that the limiting volume fraction where the zero shear rate viscosity diverges is determined by a liquid/glass phase transition very similar to that predicted for hard sphere liquids.