Edward B. Bagley
USDA, Northern Regional Research Center
1927 – 2009
Physical Chemist
Awarded Bingham Medal 1982
Dr. Edward B. Bagley was born in Alberta, Canada in 1927. He received a B.S. in both Chemistry and Physics with a Gold Medal for exemplary scholarship from the University
of Western Ontario in 1950. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Cornell University in 1954. After graduating from Cornell, Bagley worked at Canadian
Industries Limited for ten years researching topics such as the melt rheology of high-density polyethylene. In 1964 he moved to an academic post to serve as Professor of
Chemical Engineering at Washington University. In 1971 he returned to a research scientist position, this time at the Northern Regional Research Center of the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA). He was promoted to the position of Laboratory Chief at the USDA Engineering & Development Laboratory in Peoria in 1975 and stayed there
until his retirement in 1995.
Bagley’s innovative research frequently resulted in publications that identified new areas for study and new rheological phenomena. He pioneered research on flow instabilities
in polymer processing and was an early author of studies of melt fracture and the first to show that large discontinuities in the apparent or effective rheological properties
(computed from pressure-drop/flow-rate relationships) may accompany this instability. His work on entrance-effects or “end-corrections” in capillary viscometry resulted in an
empirical correction method of broad generality that is now universally employed by rheologists and referred to as “the Bagley end-correction” when calculating the viscosity
of polymer melts from capillary flow measurements. His studies of die swell, the effects of molecular weight distribution, and flow instabilities in general stimulated the
interest of a host of other scholars. With co-workers H. P. Schreiber and S. H. Storey he observed the fractionation of polymers which occurs in inhomogeneous flows and
advanced a quantitative thermodynamic explanation of this phenomenon.
Among Bagley’s best-known achievements is his work on “Super Slurper,” a super-absorbent polymer (SAP) based on a starch/acrylonitrile graft-copolymer with an affinity for
water that allows it to absorb over 1,400 times its own weight in water moisture. This invention led to Bagley being given a USDA Distinguished Service Award in 1976, an
Inventor of the Year designation by the Association for the Advancement of Invention and Innovation, and an IR-100 Award from Industrial Research Magazine. For his body
of rheology-related work, Bagley was awarded the Bingham Medal. Other accomplishments include co-authorship on a USDA report for Congress on the feasibility of developing
domestic sources of natural rubber, selection as a member of the Agricultural Research Service Hall of Fame, and service to The Society of Rheology as both vice president
(1977-79) and president (1979-81). He is remembered as a gifted collaborator and creative scientist.
Sources
American Men and Women of Science, 33rd ed.; Gale: Farmington Hills, MI, 2015; Vol. 16.
Edward B. Bagley Wins Bingham Medal. Rheology Bulletin 1982, 51(2).
Also, Box 6, Folder 39. Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740.
Edward B. Bagley (1927-2009).
Rheology Bulletin 2010, 79(2).
Photo Credit
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.