Testing Services utilising a Capillary Rheometer

A capillary rheometer is in essence, a highly instrumented ram extruder with extremely accurate ram speed & temperature control, pressure drop measurement and capillary die geometries. Gammadot uses a Porpoise P9  Twin Bore Capillary Rheometer, a Malvern Instruments RH2000 Twin Bore Capillary Rheometer & a Celsum Technologies ACR 2100 series precision single bore capillary rheometer to perform viscometry measurements across shear / extensional rate ranges relative to polymer processing. The rheometers are capable of measuring viscosity data across a very wide shear rate range and, in addition to providing the required viscosity data for applications such as injection moulding / extrusion flow simulation, are ideal for discriminating processing problems such as melt fracture, die swell, slippage flow, shark skinning, etc.

The instruments are fully computerised, which allows automatic testing and data collection. The data analysis systems fit routine rheological corrections, plus a large number of shear and extensional flow models, as utilised by the leading finite element flow analysis packages such as Autodesk Moldflow, Moldex3D & Sigmasoft 3D. Test methods are in general accordance of the following standards: ISO 11443-05 & ASTM 3835-02.