Rheology

Rheology (; from Ancient Greek ῥέω (rhéō) 'flow' and -λoγία (-logía) 'study of') is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in a fluid (liquid or gas) state, as well as "soft solids", which experience conditions under which they respond with plastic flow rather than elastic deformation to forces applied to them. Rheology is the branch of physics that deals with the deformation and flow of materials, both solids and liquids. Microrheology is the specialization of rheology in the particle scale, whilst nanorheology is its specialization in the nanoscale. The term rheology was coined by Eugene C. Bingham, a professor at Lafayette College, in 1920 from a suggestion by a colleague, Markus Reiner. The term was inspired by the aphorism of Heraclitus (often mistakenly attributed to Simplicius), panta rhei (πάντα ῥεῖ, 'everything flows') and was first used to describe the flow of liquids and the deformation of solids. It applies to substances that have a complex microstructure, such as muds, sludges, suspensions, and polymers and other glass formers (e.g., silicates), as well as many foods and additives, bodily fluids (e.g., blood) and other biological materials, and other materials that belong to the class of soft matter such as food. Newtonian fluids can be characterized by a single coefficient of viscosity for a specific temperature. Although this viscosity will change with temperature, it does not change with the strain rate. Only a small group of fluids exhibit such constant viscosity. The large class of fluids whose viscosity changes with the strain rate (the relative flow velocity) are called non-Newtonian fluids. Key Rheological Models Different materials exhibit diverse flow behaviors that can be described using various rheological models: Bingham Plastic Model: Describes materials that behave as a rigid body at low stresses but flow as a viscous fluid once the yield...