Rheology
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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 Heraclitus's famous expression panta rhei, "everything flows".
In practice, rheology is principally concerned with extending the "classical" disciplines of elasticity and Newtonian fluid mechanics to more complicated materials.
| Continuum mechanics | Solid mechanics or strength of materials | Elasticity | |
| Plasticity | Rheology | ||
| Fluid mechanics | Non-Newtonian fluids | ||
| Newtonian fluids | |||
Rheology unites the, at first sight, unrelated fields of plasticity and non-Newtonian fluids by recognising that both these types of materials are unable to support a shear stress in static equilibrium. In this sense, a plastic solid is a fluid. Granular rheology refers to the motion of granular materials.
One of the tasks of rheology is to empirically establish the relationships between deformations and stresses, respectively their derivatives by adequate measurements. These experimental techniques are known as rheometry. Such relationships are then amenable to mathematical treatment by the established methods of continuum mechanics.
Rheology has important applications in engineering, geophysics and physiology. In particular, hemorheology is the study of the properties of blood flow. In geology, solid Earth materials that exhibit viscous flow over long time scales are known as rheids.
External links
Journals covering rheology include:
- Journal of Rheology (http://www.rheology.org/sor/publications/j_rheology/default.htm)
- Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03770257)
- Rheologica Acta (http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00397/)
- Applied Rheology (http://www.ar.ethz.ch/)
- Korea-Australia Rheology Journal (http://www.rheology.or.kr/karj/)
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