Rheology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Rheology is the study of the deformation and flow of matter. The term rheology was coined by Eugene Bingham, a professor at Lehigh University, in 1920, from a suggestion by Markus Reiner, inspired by the Heraclitus' famous expression "panta rhei": everything flows. Rheology has important applications in the engineering sciences and in physiology. Hemorheology is the study of the flow properties of blood.

Basic rheological terms are:

• Viscosity
• Shear Rate and Elongation Rate
• Shear Stress
• Newtonian Law

Fluids can be categorized as:

• Newtonian fluids (the fluid viscosity is constant) and
• non-Newtonian fluids (the fluid viscosity depends on the stresses acting on the fluid) which can by subclassified into
  • generalized non-Newtonian fluids (also called purely viscous fluids) and
  • viscoelastic fluids.

Rheological properties are determined by means of rheometry.

Journals covering rheology include:

• Journal of Rheology (http://www.rheology.org/sor/publications/j_rheology/default.htm)
• Rheologica Acta (http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00397/)
• Applied Rheology (http://www.ar.ethz.ch/)
• Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03770257)
• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal (http://www.rheology.or.kr/karj/)