Viscosity of Amorphous Materials - Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Fluids

Newtonian and Non-Newtonian Fluids

Newton's law of viscosity is a constitutive equation (like Hooke's law, Fick's law, Ohm's law): it is not a fundamental law of nature but an approximation that holds in some materials and fails in others.

A fluid that behaves according to Newton's law, with a viscosity μ that is independent of the stress, is said to be Newtonian. Gases, water and many common liquids can be considered Newtonian in ordinary conditions and contexts. There are many non-Newtonian fluids that significantly deviate from that law in some way or other. For example:

• Shear thickening liquids, whose viscosity increases with the rate of shear stress.
• Shear thinning liquids, whose viscosity decreases with the rate of shear stress.
• Thixotropic liquids, that become less viscous over time when shaken, agitated, or otherwise stressed.
• Rheopectic liquids, that become more viscous over time when shaken, agitated, or otherwise stressed.
• Bingham plastics that behave as a solid at low stresses but flows as a viscous fluid at high stresses.

Shear thinning liquids are very commonly, but misleadingly, described as thixotropic.

Even for a Newtonian fluid, the viscosity usually depends on its composition and temperature. For gases and other compressible fluids, it depends on temperature and varies very slowly with pressure.

The viscosity of some fluids may depend on other factors. A magnetorheological fluid, for example, becomes thicker when subjected to a magnetic field, possibly to the point of behaving like a solid.