Rheology of PDMS-corundum sand mixtures from the Tectonic Modelling Lab of the University of Bern (CH)

Abstract

This dataset provides rheometric data of silicone (Polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS SGM36)-corundum sand mixtures used for analogue modelling in Zwaan et al. (2016, 2017), Zwaan and Schreurs (2017) and in the Tectonic Modelling Lab of the Institute of Geological Sciences at the University of Bern (CH). The PDMS is produced by Dow Corning and its characteristics have been described by e.g. Rudolf et al. (2016a,b). The corundum sand (Normalkorund Braun 95.5% F120 by Carlo Bernasconi AG: https://www.carloag.ch/shop/catalog/product/view/id/643), has a grainsize of 0.088-0.125 mm and a specific density of 3.96 g cm^-3. Further rheological characteristics are described by Panien et al. (2006). The density of the tested materials ranges between 1 (pure PDMS) and 1.6 g cm^-3 (increasing corundum sand content in mixture). The material samples have been analysed in the Helmholtz Laboratory for Tectonic Modelling (HelTec) at GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam using an Anton Paar Physica MCR 301 rheometer in a plate-plate configuration at room temperature. Rotational (controlled shear rate) tests with shear rates varying from 10^-4 to 10^-1 s^-1 were performed.

According to our rheometric analysis, the material is quasi Newtonian at strain rates below 10^-3*s^-1 and weakly shear rate thinning above. Viscosity and stress exponent increase systematically with density from ~4*10^4 to ~1*10^5 Pa*s and from 1.06 to 1.10, respectively. A first application of the materials tested can be found in Zwaan et al. (2016). Detailed information about the data, methodology and a list of files and formats is given in the "data description" and "list of files" that are included in the zip folder and also available via the DOI landing page.