Indian 

Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Department of Earth Sciences

STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY

Lecture 11. Basics of Rheology‐II
Santanu Misra
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
smisra@iitk.ac.in        http://home.iitk.ac.in/~smisra/

Viscous Rheology
The way rocks behave under stress on the surface, may not behave in a similar way at greater depth
where the rocks are exposed to pressure and temperature. Think of the example of glass, we cited at
the beginning of this lecture.

It won’t be, therefore, wise idea to understand the behavior of extremely hot rocks by same set of
constitutive equations we have applied for cold rocks, i.e., Hooke’s law.

When a deviatoric stress is applied to a fluid (or fluid like material), it tends to flow in response to the
stress. When the stress is removed, the flow stops, but the deformed fluid does not return back to its
initial shape and position of undeformed state (like it happened in elastic materials). The deformation
is, therefore, permanent and non‐recoverable.

The flow rate (i.e., how fast or how slow it deforms) of the fluid is a function of the applied stress.

The analogy of such deformation is best visualized through the operation of a dashpot filled with a
fluid.

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 Viscous Rheology

A dashpot consists of a fluid (say, cooking oil) filled cylinder and a porous piston. When an instantaneous
load is applied to the piston instantaneously, the piston doesn’t respond to the loading immediately, but
moves slowly by the rate at which fluid can flow through the porous head of the piston. The greater the
load applied the faster the fluid percolates.

If the oil is replaced by other fluid, say honey, which is thicker than cooking oil, the piston would move
with a slower rate with the application of same load. If the oil is heated, piston would move with a faster
rate given the load is unchanged.

Viscous Rheology
Fluids, in general, has a resistance to flow under
stress. The quantification of the resistance of a
fluid to flow is knows as VISCOSITY ( 𝜼 ) [or,
coefficient of viscosity]. Greater the viscosity value,
higher is the resistance to flow.
A perfectly (ideal) viscous material flows like a fluid
when influenced by an external force. This means
that there is no elastic deformation involved.

This deformation behaviour at constant volume (Newtonian Fluid) is idealised by a linear viscous
constitutive equation. The 1D equation relates the normal deviatoric stress component (𝜎 ) to the
instantaneous extension rate (𝜀 ) or the shear stress (𝜏) to the instantaneous shear strain rate (𝛾).

𝜎 2𝜂𝜀 𝜏 2𝜂𝛾 Viscosity is measured experimentally, the SI unit of which is Pa.s

[kg/(ms)‐1]. Poise is also commonly used unit of viscosity; 1 poise =
0.1 Pa.s.
𝜂 𝜎 /2𝜀 𝜂 𝜏/2𝛾

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 Viscous Rheology
𝜏 2𝜂𝛾 Viscosity is measured experimentally, the SI unit of which is Pa.s
[kg/(ms)‐1]. Poise is also commonly used unit of viscosity; 1 poise =
0.1 Pa.s.
𝜂 𝜏/2𝛾

Kinematic Viscosity is 𝜂 / unit m2s‐1. 0.0001 m2 = 1 stokes

Water : 1 cPoise
Engine Oil : 500 cPoise Check pitch‐drop experiment at University of  
Honey : 10,000 cPoise Queensland, started in 1927. 9 drops till date.
Pitch : 230,000,000,000 cPoise
Air : 0.018 cPoise

Lower Crust : 1.0 × 1026 cPoise

Mantle : 2.8 × 1023 cPoise

Viscous Rheology

A flow is said to be incompressible if there are no changes in density of the fluid caused by the velocity of 
the flow at constant ambient conditions.

Volume remains constant.

A flow is said to be compressible if density of the fluid changes by the velocity of the flow at constant 
ambient conditions.

Volume change is essential.

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 Viscous Rheology

Streamlines – the path of the fluid particles under flow; the flow velocity
vector is tangential to the streamline.

Volume of flow = constant

If area between streamlines is high, the velocity is low

If area between streamlines is low, the velocity is high

In regions where the streamlines squeeze together, the flow

Rigid velocity is high
Low velocity
object

High velocity

Viscous Rheology

Reynolds Number – the ratio of inertial force and viscous force ( or, dynamic
pressure and shear stress); dimensionless.

u 2 L2 uL - density u - velocity

Re   L - characteristic length - viscosity
uL 

For rocks flowing at high pressure temperature, the

velocity is very low and viscosity is very high – Re is
very small (<2‐3) and the flow is laminar (except
magma flow).
Low Re
For groundwater problems, velocity could be high and
viscosity low – Re is very high and flow is turbulent.

High Re

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 Viscous Rheology
If the rock is layered in the scale of consideration (say, deforming quartz and mica layers in a schist,
or silica and carbonate rich layers in calc‐silicates), then each layer has its own viscosity.

The difference of viscosity (also the

elasticity) in the adjacent layers in
deforming rocks are of great importance,
and boudinaging, buckle‐folding,
thickness of the fold hinge etc. are
mostly determined by the Relative
Viscosity between the two adjacent
layers.

Relative viscosity is related to

competency, where a competent layer is
stiffer (for elastic cases) or more viscous
than its surroundings.

Viscous Rheology

The equation 𝜏 2𝜂𝛾 suggests viscosity changes

linearly with strain rate, and only applicable for
linear viscous fluids or Newtonian fluids. Water,
magma under certain conditions, flow of salt in salt
domes etc. are Newtonian Fluids and follow linear
viscous rheology.

In many other natural flows (e.g., polycrystalline flow at lower crust and upper mantle, flow of
glaciers, metal rich rocks etc.) the viscosity of the concerned fluid does not remain constant with the
change of strain‐rate. These type of fluids are known as Non‐linear Viscous Fluids or Non‐
Newtonian Fluids.
The simplest form of expressing the constitutive equation for Non‐linear Viscous Fluids:
where, A is a material constant and n is stress‐exponent;
𝜀 𝐴 𝜎 𝛾 𝐴𝜏 note, when n=1, the equation takes the shape of linear
viscous rheology.
Power‐Law Materials

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 Plastic Rheology

Under some natural conditions the strain‐response of rocks cannot be explained neither by elastic
nor by viscous rheology.

These materials, during deformation, initially display an elastic behaviour; however, they flow
readily at or little above the Yield Stress.

This typical behaviour of materials under stress is best described the PLASTIC Rheology.

Plastic Rheology is a description of a material behavior under stress to undergo irreversible

(permanent) deformation after yield strength (elastic limit) of the material.

During the the post yield deformation, the rocks must maintain its continuity (cohesion) and should
not produce fracture at the scale of observation.

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Plastic  Rheology

The mechanical analogue of ideal plastic

rheology is best explained by the t0
frictional resistance of the sliding of a
block on a surface.
t1
The force increases linearly from t1 to t2
to overcome the frictional resistance
(analogues to yield strength, y) and t2
remains constant to t3, and then
decreases linearly to to t4. The velocity of
t3
the block is zero till the force equates to
the y, after that the block can move
with possible velocity and not a function
of the applied force, as the force never t4
exceeds the frictional resistance except t0 t1 t2 t3 t4
during acceleration.

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 Plastic  Rheology
Mathematically the behaviour of the ideal Plastic Rheology (rigid plastic material / St. Venant
material) is expressed with the consideration that there is no strain at all below the yield stress (𝜎 )
and during the deformation the stress cannot be above the yield stress, except during the
acceleration of the deformation.

The simplest constitutive equation for ideal plastic rheology is known as von Mises Yield Criterion or
von Mises Failure Criterion and expressed as:

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𝜎 𝜎 OR 𝜎 𝜎 𝜎 𝜎 𝜎 𝜎 𝜎
2

The stress does not determine the strain rate, and the equation also does not say anything about the
possible values of stress after the yield.

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Plastic  Rheology

Rocks are not ideal plastic materials

during plastic deformation. Strain rate is
likely to have an effect, and the stress
level is likely to change during the
deformation history. Rock deformation
experiments at different experimental
conditions reveal a number of plastic
behaviour or rock‐deformation.

If more stress is needed for additional strain, the phenomenon called strain/work hardening. The
opposite feature is strain/work softening. Post yield ideal plastic behaviour is steady state and and
combination of all these is a complex phenomena.

All such processes can be explained by the deformation in the atomic scales inside deforming
crystals. We will examine them during the lectures of Deformation Mechanism of Rocks.

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 Summary of Rheology Basics

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Many new terminologies

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 Next Lecture

Combined (Complex) Rheology

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