Figure 3. Rheological characterisation.

Ascending flow curves for heated and non-heated samples of 10 wt% Na-fluorohectorite in 10 mM NaCl measured on a Physica MCR300 stress controlled rheometer and on a Rheometric Scientific ARES true strain controlled rheometer. Non-heated samples were prepared two days prior to measurement and kept at room temperature until the start of the experiments. Heated samples were heated to 350 K immediately after preparation and kept at this temperature for 15 minutes before being cooled back to room temperature and stored for two days. The reproducibility of the data obtained on the two different rheometers with different cone angles indicates that wall-slip is not significant here²⁶. The solid line shows the Herschel-Bulkley model¹⁷ fit.