How does toothpaste stay in its tube and not ooze out when we remove the cap?
How does toothpaste stay in its tube and not ooze out when we remove the cap? What causes seemingly solid ground to suddenly break free into a landslide? Defining exactly how soft materials flow and seize has eluded researchers for years, but a new study explains this complex motion using relatively simple experiments. The ability to define – and eventually predict – soft material flow will benefit people dealing with everything from spreadable cheese to avalanches.
The study, which was performed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
“We are finding that soft material flow is more of a gradual transition rather than the abrupt change the current models suggest,” said chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Simon Rogers, who led the study and is an affiliate of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I.
Continue reading at University of Illinois.
Image via U.S. Geological Survey.
