My 12-year-old wants to know. She got the idea by how a snowman, made with a silly putty knock off, melted overnight. Then I told her about how it shatters if dropped from a height.
Then she said to ask you guys.
Being a viscoelastic liquid, it’s definitely non-Newtonian.
Remember, a Newtonian liquid is purely viscous, not viscoelastic, and to top it up the viscosity must be constant both with time and shear rate.
(Too late for the edit window)
In ascending levels of complex behavior of solids/fluids, you’ll have:
[ul]
[li]Newtonian fluid: No elastic properties, viscosity independent of shear rate and time. Examples: Sugar syrup, water. Also Hookean solid: Spring rate independent on strain or strain rate[/li][li]Non-Newtonian fluid: No elastic properties, viscosity varies with e.g. shear rate or time. Examples: Latex paint (thixotropic, e.g. viscosity decreases with time at constant shear rate), corn starch suspensions (dilatant, e.g. viscosity increases with shear rate)[/li][li]Viscoelastic material: Both elastic and viscous behavior, which phenomenon that dominates is usually determined by shear rate. Examples: Silly putty or polyetyhlene plastic bags[/li][/ul]
IMO, the behavior of silly putty can be almost perfectly described by the Maxwell model
Are oobleck and silly putty both pretty much the same type of non-Newtonian fluid? They both fall into the viscoelastic category. Can they both be well-described using the Maxwell model?
My understanding is that oobleck is as it changes viscosity under pressure. I don’t believe silly putty is, but could be wrong.
ETA: I looked at the link and was surprised to see silly putty on it! Perhaps I’m wrong…
No.
They don’t. In my post #2 I already mentioned starch suspensions. They are basically strongly shear-thickening viscous fluids and can’t be modeled by the Maxwell model. Silly putty, however, is a near-perfect example of a viscoelastic Maxwell fluid
You people are excellent. Truly.