Home  About the Society & History
About the Society
The way in which liquids flow and solids deform affects all aspects of life.
Extraction and processing of crude oil, moulding of plastics, use of toothpaste,
spreading of margarine, painting and the lubrication of joints in the human body
are all examples of processes depending upon rheological behaviour.
Rheology is defined
as the science of the deformation and flow of matter.
- The British Society of Rheology was founded in 1940 with the objective of promoting the science of rheology.
- The Society is non-profit making and is registered as a charity (Reg. Charity No 249967).
- The Society offers various
awards and scholarships.
- It is a founder member of the International Committee on Rheology (1953) which organizes the four-yearly International Congresses. It is also a founder member of the European Society of Rheology (1996), and has many links with the Society of Rheology in the USA.
If your work is concerned with rheology in any way,
then you have much to gain by joining the British Society of Rheology -
publications, conferences and access to fellow members who, while working in a
different discipline or industry, may be facing similar problems to yours.
History of the Society
The Society was founded as an informal British Rheologists' Club in 1940 and has as its objectives the promotion of science and dissemination of knowledge in the areas of pure and applied rheology. It has expanded greatly since then and has reached over 300 members, of whom about one third lie outside the U.K. and are distributed widely throughout the world. For example, there are about 50 members in North America. However, it still strives to preserve the informal Club atmosphere. All offices of the Society are honorary appointments and an elected Council is the governing body. Members are drawn both from academic life and from a wide range of industrial activities. They come from many scientific disciplines including mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, materials science, engineering and medicine.
BSR Archives
The archives of the British Society of Rheology are held in
the Strong Room of the Hugh Owen Library, Aberystwyth University. They
comprise several groups of documents as described below. A more detailed
description of the contents of the archives is available here
Business Papers
Correspondence and notes relating
to the establishment and early history of the British Society of Rheology;
agenda and minutes of meetings; BSR rules and regulations, and papers
concerning their development; information regarding membership; general
correspondence; correspondence relating to the BSR publication, Rheology
Abstracts ; notes, draft reports and proposals on rheological nomenclature,
and papers relating to BSR awards.
Conference Papers
Material concerning conference
planning; notes, correspondence, programmes and reports relating to BSR
conferences, including the Golden Jubilee Conference of 1990; correspondence
discussing the possibility of joint conferences between the BSR and the US
Society of Rheology, and minutes of the British Organising Committee of the
Second International Congress on Rheology.
Papers Relating to
Other Rheological Societies
Papers relating to European
rheological activity in general; to the International Committee on Rheology,
and to rheological societies in Japan, Canada, France, Australia, India, The
Netherlands, the USSR, Italy, Belgium and the USA.
Papers Relating to
Other Scientific Organisations
Papers relating to various
scientific organisations, and their concern with rheology. These include the
Royal Society; the British Standards Institution; The British National
Committee for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; The Directorate of Polymer
Engineering, and the Institute for Scientific Information.
Photographs
A collection of early photographs
of Scott-Blair and other members of the British Society of Rheology, along with
photographs taken from 1975 onwards, mainly of annual award winners and recent
council members.
Killesreiter Papers
Correspondence between the BSR and
the German scientist Hermann Killesreiter, along with copies of scientific
papers published by Killesreiter.
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