| 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 relatively straightforward disciplines of elasticity and Newtonian fluid mechanics to more complicated
and realistic materials.
Rheology brings unity to 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 key tasks of rheology is empirically to establish the relationships between characteristics such as shear stress and strain and its derivatives. These experimental techniques are known as rheometry. Such relationships are then amenable
to mathematical treatment by the usual methods of continuum
mechanics.
Rheology has important applications in engineering and in physiology. In particular, Hemorheology is the study of the properties of blood flow.
External links
Journals covering rheology include:
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