The rheology of high grade massecuites and the separated molasses has been measured
during the course of numerous SRI research projects in recent years. Information on
these properties is important in several areas of factory processing including vacuum
pan cr:ystallisation, cooling crystalliser design and operation, flow in pipework and
dueting, and centrifugal separation. Investigations on viscosity and flow properties
covered a wide range of materials so that correlations could be developed to cover all
aspects of sugar crystallisation from high purity A massecuite strikes to exhausted low
grade massecuite containing entrapped gas. It was concluded that, for high grade
massecuites, the Brookfield viscometer with disc spindles was preferred for factory
control work even though the results were inflated relative to pipe tlow measurements.
Correlations from the literature have been assessed and modified to give better matching to factory data. The correlations allow prediction of molasses viscosity from a small number of parameters and the prediction of massecuite viscosity in terms of the mother molasses viscosity and crystal properties.