The measurement of extensional viscosity is important in many chemical, biomedical, agricultural, and engineering applications. The determination of extensional viscosity is generally difficult, expensive, and inaccessible outside of research labs. The development of a smartphone application (app) that could use a phone’s high-speed camera to measure this parameter could open...
Soft matter encapsulates a large array of materials ranging from electronics, plastics, and cosmetics to the biofluids making up all organisms. One of the most important properties of these materials that dictate their functionality is their rheology, which is the flow and deformation behavior in response to stress. The focus...
The addition of macromolecules to solvent, even in dilute quantities, can significantly alter a fluid's response in an extensional, or stretching, flow. When high-molecular-weight polymers are extended in solution, extensional thickening can result, yielding viscosities that are orders of magnitude larger than values found in shear. Examples of applications where...