The Foundations of Rheology

This book is for anyone who could not understand rheology, the science of the flow of natural and artificial liquids, because of its extensive jargon and infestation with complex formulas, which cloud the real meaning and potential of rheology, but those who really wish to understand and (possibly) use it in his work and life. In this book, rheology appears as one of the techniques that help enhance our knowledge of chemistry, physics, material science, applied technology, and many other similar fields. Learning rheology is no longer restricted to a selected few but is an enchanting story of human inventiveness and perception - due to the understanding and skills of conveying this complex information by the author of this book.

The book presents the main theoretical concepts of rheology illustrated with experimental data, and a discussion of the practical applications of the results of studies of the flow of many real liquids encountered in everyday life, medicine, pharmaceutical production, engineering, process technology, building construction and their decoration, cosmetics, marine applications, and many other disciplines which rely on rheological measurements and data.

The author is one of the most recognized world rheologists, who, in his long practice, developed courses that are comprehensive and easy to understand. The main goal of this book is to serve the needs of experienced practitioners and novices, university professors and students, as well as designers of new products and those who work with and adapt these products to everyday applications.

Numerous common fluid liquids such materials, such as polymers, pastes, creams, biological fluids (blood), paints, oil, food products, pharmacological cosmetics, building materials, oils, etc. not only have different requirements but also a very broad range of properties difficult to describe by a single theory, equation, or numerical value, and, thus require special methods of measurement and interpretation. Six chapters of this book outline these different needs of theory and practice, forming the foundations of rheology.

The book begins with fundamental aspects of continuum mechanics. The next chapter discusses the commonly understood principles of flow and deformation of solids, such as those of Newtonian liquids and Hookean solids, respectively, followed by more complex phenomena of plasticity and linear viscoelasticity.

Non-linear effects in rheology are discussed in the third chapter. This chapter plays a central role in the book. It comprehensively describes various phenomena that seem "strange" to specialists brought up on classical continuum mechanics. These phenomena are inherent in many (if not all) real technological materials. These are unusual flow peculiarities of elastic liquids and yielding media, relaxation, and creep, the memory of past events, and damping in vibrations of elastic products. This chapter examines the fundamental role of structure that changes under external influence, as well as inevitable heterogeneities of real commercial materials and understanding of deformation-induced phase transitions. Finally, the issues discussed that are usually kept silent in books of this kind play a decisive role in today's life and science - these are bifurcations and the emergence of instability. turning into chaos

Chapters four and five concentrate on applying rheology to two main classes of liquids - polymeric and dispersed systems. They discuss the effects of molecular weight, concentration, temperature, and elasticity, as well as instabilities, viscoelasticity, uniaxial extension, stress, prokinetics, structural transitions, and many other aspects. The last chapter is devoted to measuring rheological properties with different types of viscometers, rheometers, plastometers, and penetrometers.

Prof. Dr. Alexander Yakovelich Malkin is the Principal Research Fellow at the Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. He has written five monographs and more than 100 papers in English, including three books on the subject of rheology. He has also taken part as an invited plenary or keynote speaker at numerous international conferences and meetings on rheology, polymer processing and physics.