Bingham plastic

Mayonnaise is a Bingham plastic. The surface has ridges and peaks because Bingham plastics mimic solids under low shear stresses.

In materials science, a Bingham plastic is a viscoplastic material that behaves as a rigid body at low stresses but flows as a viscous fluid at high stress. It is named after Eugene C. Bingham who proposed its mathematical form.[1]

It is used as a common mathematical model of mud flow in drilling engineering, and in the handling of slurries. A common example is toothpaste,[2] which will not be extruded until a certain pressure is applied to the tube. It is then pushed out as a relatively coherent plug.

  1. ^ Bingham, E.C. (1916). "An Investigation of the Laws of Plastic Flow". Bulletin of the Bureau of Standards. 13 (2): 309–353. doi:10.6028/bulletin.304. hdl:2027/mdp.39015086559054.
  2. ^ Steffe, J.F. (1996). Rheological Methods in Food Process Engineering (2nd ed.). Freeman Press. ISBN 0-9632036-1-4.