Contents

Executive Committee - 2003-2005 Standing Committees ICR2004 Seoul Korea Every four years the international rheology community gathers; the XIVth International Congress on Rheology will take place this summer in Seoul Korea. Bingham Medal Awarded to Marrucci Giuseppe Marrucci was awarded the Bingham Medal, the Society’s highest honor, at Pittsburgh SOR meeting. What is Rheology Anyway? New Bulletin editor Faith Morrison gives a layman’s introduction to rheology. Lubbock 2005 The 76th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology will take place in February 2005 in Lubbock, Texas USA. Rheology News Xpansion Instruments announces new extensional-flow attachment for conventional shear rheometers; Bohlin now part of Malvern Instruments; first tailings rheology workshop held in Melbourne. Student Corner Travel grants for Lubbock; Student Poster Competition in Lubbock; Using the SOR website for your job search. Society Business The 2003 JOR Publication Award was announced in Pittsburgh; Flory wins poster contest; Deadline for Bingham Medal nominations is January 2004; The secretary's and treasurer's reports on The Society. Calendar of Rheology Conferences and Courses Masthead In Upcoming Issues of the Bulletin An Invitation to Join The Society of Rheology

Executive Committee - 2003-2005

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Standing Committees

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It’s an International CongressYear:
Rheology 2004
22-27 August 2004
Seoul South Korea

Every four years rheologists assemble for the International Congress on Rheology to share new discoveries and to renew working relationships with their colleagues worldwide. In 2004, the Fourteenth International Congress on Rheology will take place in Seoul Korea on August 22-27. Details and registration materials for ICR2004 may be found on the conference web site www.icr2004.or.kr.

Chaired by Professor Jae Chun Hyun from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, ICR2004 features symposia on 14 topics including nanorheology & microfluidics, and foods & biomaterials. Four plenary lectures will be presented; the invited plenary speakers are Prof. David V. Boger from the University of Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Sangtae Kim of Purdue University, USA, Prof. Ronald G. Larson of the University of Michigan, USA, and Prof. Manfred H. Wagner of Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. The Congress will take place in the COEX Convention Center, a modern international convention and exhibition center located in the southern metropolitan area of Seoul.

As is traditional at the International Congress on Rheology, a variety of social events have been arranged, including a cultural performance at the Seoul Arts Center on the evening of Monday, August 23. On Wednesday afternoon an excursion to several royal palaces will be followed by dinner at the Everland Rose Garden. The Congress banquet will take place on Thursday, August 26. An extensive exhibit of rheological equipment and related products and services will be open at the COEX Convention Center throughout the Congress.

Seoul is located in the central part of the Korean Peninsula and is home to 10 million people, with an additional 10 million residing in its surrounding communities. Seoul is split into two parts by the Han River. The older section is to the north, and the presidential residence and five royal palaces are all located in the more-established northern district. The newer, southern district is home to the Olympic stadium, convention centers, and modern shopping malls; the COEX Convention Center is in the southern section of the city. All of the city of Seoul is serviced by a modern subway system and other forms of public transportation.

Early registration for delegates and accompanying persons will be open through 30 April 2004. Registration fees are US $600 for delegates (US $680 after 30 April), US $150 (US $200 after 30 April) for students, and US $350 for accompanying persons.

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Pino Marrucci Receives Bingham Medal in Pittsburgh

In the July 2003 Bulletin The Society announced that the Bingham Award Committee and the SOR Executive Committee had chosen Giuseppe (Pino) Marrucci as the recipient of the 2003 Bingham Medal of The Society of Rheology. Marrucci received his award and the $5,000 prize at the 75th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology in Pittsburgh, PA USA on 13 October 2003.

In selecting Marrucci for the award, the Bingham Award Committee singled out Marrucci for the extraordinary breadth and depth of his contributions to the science of rheology.

Colleagues of Bingham medalist Pino Marrucci help Pino and Adriana celebrate at the 2003 SOR meeting in Pittsburgh. From left, Davide Hill, Nino Grizzutti, Pino Marrucci, Adriana Marrucci, Mario Minale, and Pier Luca Maffettone.

Marrucci has made many notable contributions to the study of entangled polymers, including incorporating chain stretch and convective constraint release (CCR) in constitutive models. In the field of liquid crystals and liquid crystalline polymers, Marrucci and collaborator Pier Luca Maffetone explained the source of the mysterious negative first normal stress difference that appears in shearing flows of nematic polymers (director tumbling) and later Marrucci and Greco developed a theory for the structure of a defect core that can be applied to flowing liquid crystals.

In addition to his modeling efforts, Marrucci also contributed to the engineering side of rheology. Marrucci has produced a simplified differential version of the Doi-Edwards equation and other simplified equations useful in engineering analysis, and in collaboration with Mort Denn he has contributed to studies of filament breakup and to the study of the rheology of suspensions.

Marrucci is currently Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Naples. Marrucci joins a distinguished roster of 55 prior awardees that stretches back to the first Bingham medalist, M. Mooney in 1948.

An SOR tradition is to gather all past Bingham medalists to pose for a photo with the current recipient. Present in Pittsburgh were (back row) Alan Gent, Mort Denn, Guy Berry, Kurt Wissbrum, Arthur Metzner, Bill Russel, (first row) Bill Schowalter, Bob Bird, Pino Marrucci, Bill Graessley, Ron Larson, and John Dealy.

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What is Rheology Anyway?
An answer for your baffled family and friends

Faith A. Morrison

When the hotel clerk at The Society of Rheology Meeting asks me “What is rheology anyway?”, I have a ready answer I could use: “Rheology is the study of deformation and flow.” This is true, but such an answer would not usually be followed by a light-bulb moment for the friendly staff member.

Instead, I say, “Rheology is the study of the flow of materials that behave in an interesting or unusual manner. Oil and water flow in familiar, normal ways, whereas mayonnaise, peanut butter, chocolate, bread dough, and silly putty flow in complex and unusual ways. In rheology, we study the flows of unusual materials.”

“Oh,” the desk clerk replies. “Interesting. I thought it might have something to do with religion or something – rheology-theology – it’s so similar.”

“True. It’s a common mix-up. Especially for me, since my name is Faith.” We both smile.

I have even had the experience of explaining rheology to the guests at a wedding reception. “Oh, you’re writing a book, says Patankar, a theatre director and friend of the bride. What is it about?”

“It’s a college textbook called Understanding Rheology.” Then the predictable question.

“What’s rheology?”

Since we had time before the dancing resumed and Patankar appeared to be truly interested, I went beyond the desk-clerk version and explained a bit more about rheology.

“You know how with mayonnaise, when you first open the jar there’s a little curl of mayo at the top, left over from when the jar was filled, months or years ago. Or when you open a partly used jar of mayonnaise, how the shape of the top surface is distorted by whoever last made a sandwich.”

“True,” said Patankar.

“Well, compare that observation with the behavior of honey. The top surface of honey in a jar is always smooth. Within a few seconds of serving yourself from a honey jar, the surface is flat again – it is able to flow and become flat quite rapidly, while the mayo, even after months, fails to flow, and retains the last shape carved into it by a knife.”

“That is odd,” Patankar concurs. “What’s the difference between mayo and honey? If anything, honey seems thicker to me than mayonnaise, so the honey should have a harder time flowing than the mayo.”

Profound differences in rheological properties are noticeable in foods such as mayonnaise and honey.

“Good observation. You’ve just noticed a key point about studying unusual flow behavior. Normal fluids can be different in the sense that some are thicker than others – in scientific terms some fluids have higher viscosities than others. But other than having different viscosities, all normal or Newtonian fluids (air, water, oil, honey) follow the same scientific laws. On the other hand, there are also fluids that do not follow the Newtonian flow laws. These non-Newtonian fluids, for example mayo, paint, molten plastics, foams, clays, and many other fluids, behave in a wide variety of ways. The science of studying these types of unusual materials is called rheology – rheo- from the Greek word for ‘flow’, and -ology meaning ‘study of’.”

“Wow,” said Patankar. “You just taught me something about rheology!”

I smiled. “Not so unfamiliar is it? Want to read my book?”

“No thanks,” he said with a smile. “Just a taste of rheology is enough for me.”

Anyone who has cooked or baked or played in a sandbox or in a bubble bath has experimented with rheology. The scientists who study the mathematical relationships that describe the behavior of non-Newtonian fluids are called rheologists, and 1700 of them from around the world are members of The Society of Rheology (SOR; on the web at www0.rheology.org/sor/), a founding member society of the American Institute of Physics. The Society of Rheology was officially formed on December 9, 1929, the outgrowth of a burgeoning interest in the behavior of colloidal materials, including interest in the flow behavior of newly discovered synthetic rubbers and polymers.

The object of The Society of Rheology is the advancement of rheology and its applications, and to that end the SOR sponsors yearly meetings and publishes the Journal of Rheology and the Rheology Bulletin. The Journal of Rheology, a peer-reviewed scholarly publication, appears six times per year.

The SOR is an all-volunteer society, and it has always attracted many able members interested in maintaining the high quality of its journal and of its activities. Membership in The Society of Rheology is open to anyone whose work and interests lie within the field of rheology. Dues are $40/year for regular members and $25/year for students.

Dr. Faith A. Morrison is Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Michigan Technological University. She is the author of Understanding Rheology (Oxford, 2001), is currently the editor of the Rheology Bulletin and member and past chair of the SOR Membership Committee.

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Lubbock Feb 2005:
76th Annual SOR Meeting Hosted by Texas Tech

The 76th Annual Meeting of the Society of Rheology will be held in Lubbock, TX USA from 13-17 February 2005; the associated optional short course will be offered on 12 and 13 February. Plan to attend to make this 76th a meeting to remember until we reach the 100th! All sessions will be held at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center which is a one-block walk from the conference hotel, the newly renovated Holiday Inn Hotel and Towers (806-763-1200). Other nearby hotels include the Four Points Sheraton (806-747-0171) and the La Quinta Inn Civic Center (806-763-9441).

As usual, the meeting will begin with a reception in the hotel on Sunday evening. There will be a Society Luncheon on Monday, and the Bingham Award will be presented at a dinner on Tuesday evening. We will hold the poster session on Wednesday evening. Additional details on the meeting, and the technical program listing, will be published in the July 2004 Bulletin. Anyone interested in serving on the program committee to help organize sessions is invited to contact Wes Burghardt (see below).

The conference hotel can be reached by hotel shuttle or taxi; it is about 12 minutes from the airport. Lubbock International Airport is served by American Express, Delta, Continental, and Southwest Airlines. Coming from Europe, the East Coast of the USA, or the Midwest of the USA, one generally flies through Dallas or Houston. Coming from the West Coast of the USA it is often best to use Southwest on a one-stop from either Los Angeles or Oakland through Las Vegas, El Paso, or Albuquerque.

A block of rooms will be available at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Towers for the participants in the meeting. Attractions in the Lubbock area are readily reached from the hotel and can be found at the web site www.lubbocklegends.com.

The meeting organizers are:

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Rheology News

Xpansion Instruments Announces New Extensional-Flow Capability

High-strain extensional flow on your in-house shear rheometer? That’s the claim of Xpansion Instruments for their new Sentmanat Extension Rheometer (SER).

The SER is a small instrument that fits onto the TA ARES rotational rheometer; versions for other commercial shear rheometers are in the works. The SER’s patented technology uses dual wind-up drums driven by the shear rheometer to produce a horizontal elongational flow in polymer melts and elastomers.

The SER was first developed for use in characterizing uncured elastomers and is also adaptable for solids tensile testing, tear testing, peel testing, as well as friction testing. Sample size is just a few milligrams. For more information go to www.xinst.com.

Malvern Instruments acquires Bohlin

Malvern Instruments Ltd (Malvern UK) has acquired Bohlin Instruments Ltd (Cirencester UK). The acquisition was completed on 31 October 2003. Bohlin’s managing director Richard Hall has joined the Malvern Instruments board and will lead the company’s rheology team.

First Tailings Rheology Workshop Held in Melbourne

The Australian Centre for Geomechanics (ACG) presented the First Minerals Processing and Tailings Rheology Workshop in Melbourne Australia on 17 May 2003 in conjunction with the University of Melbourne. The workshop attracted over 50 professionals and researchers from around the world.

The workshop explored the rheology of slurry operations and minerals processing. A keynote lecture was given by David Boger of the University of Melbourne; other speakers were Mark Cogill and Nikk Vagias of Rio Tinto Technical Services, Peter Scales of the University of Melbourne, Lionel Pullum, a consulting engineer with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and ACG Senior Consultant, Richard Jewell.

The workshop included practical sessions involving rheological measurements and experience with a pilot-plant. Sponsors of the workshop were ACG, Rio Tinto Technical Services, Rheology Solutions, and Outokumpu Technology. Workshop proceedings are available on CD ROM (contact Josephine Ruddle acg@acg.uwa.edu.au).

Student Travel Grants for Lubbock 2005

The Society of Rheology offers student travel grants to partially support the costs of attending Society meetings. Graduate student members whose faculty advisor is also a member of SOR are eligible. The travel grants cover a maximum of four days of lodging at the conference hotel, which means they can be worth over US $400. Grants are available on a first-come, first-served basis until the budgeted funds are exhausted. Only one application per faculty advisor will be accepted for each meeting. Details are available on the web at www0.rheology.org/sor/annual_meeting/2003Oct/student.htm; an update of application procedures will be posted closer to the date of the Lubbock meeting.

US $200 Prize for Poster at Lubbock

The 5th Society of Rheology Student Poster Competition will take place at the February 2005 SOR meeting in Lubbock, Texas USA. Students who are first-authors on a poster and who plan to be making the presentation at the meeting are eligible to enter the competition for the US $200 prize.

Entering the Poster Competition is straightforward; abstracts are submitted on the web, as usual, for the Lubbock meeting. In addition, students who wish to enter the competition will submit either a two-page extended abstract describing their research or a PowerPoint pre-print of the poster. Eight or nine finalists will be notified by the chair of the poster session that they have been selected as finalists, and during the session these posters will be judged by a three-member committee. Announcement of the award will be made at the end of the poster session.

Job Hunting? Start at the SOR Web Site

Student members of the SOR have all the same privileges as regular members, including access to the members-only web site of the SOR: www0.rheology.org/sormbr/. The SOR online member listing can be searched by name or by affiliation, pinpointing rheologists within a company for your cover letters. This site is also quite useful for refreshing your memory on contacts made at SOR meetings.

The Rheology Index (www0.rheology.org/sorindex/), another service of The Society of Rheology, provides a convenient place to browse the websites of corporations and laboratories worldwide that will be interested in hiring rheologists.

2004

2-4 February 2004
TA Instruments Users Meeting & Symposium, San Antonio, Texas USA

3-4 June 2004
Merging Experiment with Theory in Rheology Short Course, University of Massachusetts, Amherst USA

6-11 June 2004
Rheological Measurements Short Course: Application to Polymers, Suspensions and Processing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

20-24 June 2004
20th Annual Meeting of the Polymer Processing Society, Akron, Ohio USA

27-29 June 2004
4th International Meeting of the Hellenic Society of Rheology (HSR 2004), Athens Greece

2-6 August 2004
Nordic Rheology Conference 2004, Reykjavik Iceland

22-27 August 2004
XIVth International Congress on Rheology, Seoul Korea

September 2004 (tentative)
The 5th International Symposium on Binder Rheology and Pavement Performance, location TBA

7-10 Nov 2004
Regional Meeting of the Polymer Processing Society, Florianopolis Brazil

2005

12-13 February 2005
SOR Short Course on Rheology (topic TBA), Lubbock, Texas USA

13-17 February 2005
76th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, Lubbock, Texas USA

Spring 2005 (tentative)
2nd Annual European Rheology Conference AERC 2005, location TBA

27-29 June 2005 (tentative)
13th European Conference on Clinical Hemorheology, Siena Italy

Sept 2005 (tentative)
12th International Congress of Biorheology and 5th International Conference on Clinical Hemorheology, China

15-16 October 2005
SOR Short Course on Rheology (topic TBA), Vancouver Canada

16-20 October 2005
77th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, Vancouver Canada

2006

27-29 April 2006
3rd Annual European Rheology Conference AERC 2006, Hersonissos Crete

7-8 October 2006
SOR Short Course on Rheology (topic TBA), Portland, Maine USA

8-12 October 2006
78th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, Portland, Maine USA

2007

Spring 2007 (tentative)
4th Annual European Rheology Conference AERC 2007, location TBA

October 2007
SOR Short Course on Rheology (topic TBA), Salt Lake City, Utah USA

October 2007
79th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, Salt Lake City, Utah USA

2008

August 2008 (tentative)
XVth International Congress on Rheology and 80th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, Monterey, California USA

2009

October 2009
81st Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology, Madison, Wisconsin USA

The Rheology Bulletin is the news and information publication of The Society of Rheology (SOR), and is published twice a year in January and July. Subscription is free on membership in The Society of Rheology. Society web site: www0.rheology.org/sor/

Change of address information for the Bulletin, questions on membership status in The Society of Rheology, or problems with access to the SOR website should be addressed to:

Letters to the Editor are welcome. Please send by email to fmorriso@mtu.edu or by regular mail to:

Organizations interested in advertising in the Rheology Bulletin must be advertisers in the Journal of Rheology. Advertising inquiries for the Journal of Rheology should be addressed to:

Bulletin advertising rates are: quarter page: $110; half page: $212.50; full page: $425. Contact the editor to arrange Bulletin advertising.

Dough Rheology

an expert in the field introduces us to this ancient, complex rheological fluid

Blood Rheology

two international societies support the study of blood flow

Technical Program for Lubbock 2005

Tips on Instrument Care