Catenary Rheological Model: A Compact Function for Describing Ceramic Suspension Viscosity

ABSTRACT

The Catenary Rheological Model (CRM) provides a compact functional description of the viscosity of ceramic suspensions across a wide range of solid loadings. The proposed formulation captures both dilute and concentrated regimens within a single analytical expression using only two parameters. The model ensures smooth and monotonic viscosity growth with increasing solid fraction while satisfying the required limiting behavior at low concentrations. It enables consistent fitting of experimental data for different suspension systems without relying on empirical exponents or complex functional forms. The applicability of CRM is demonstrated on various ceramic suspensions, where it shows high‐quality agreement with experimental data and performs competitively with established rheological models. The formulation also introduces a curvature coefficient, , which provides a compact measure of the initial deviation from dilute‐regimen behavior.