One important goal of our scientific work is the improvement of different characterization techniques and the according knowledge transfer to industry, e.g. the implementation of ur ideas into commercial products. Examples of different ideas leading to commercial products in cooperation with different companies are listed in the table below and described shortly in one additional page.
| Idea | Industrial partner | product | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Partitioned-plate geometry | TA-Instruments | supplies for ARES-Rheometer |
 |
FT-Rheology | TA-Instruments | ARES-G2 |
 |
Detection of flow instablities via pressure sensors | Goettfert | Rheograph 25 - 120 |
 |
force measurement in extensional rheology | Thermo Fisher Scientific | CaBER |
Extensional rheology is an important technique for many polymer properties. With the help of special rheometers (CaBER = Capillary Breakup Extensional Rheometer), this can even be measured for liquids or low-viscosity melts. Previously, the only result obtained was the diameter of the resulting filament as a function of time. Thanks to our extension, the force required for elongation can now also be measured parallel to the thickness of the resulting filament, which significantly expands the previous measurement and differentiation possibilities of the CaBER.
A well-known problem in polymer processing is flow instability, which occurs when processing shear rates are too high and leads to roughened, unusable products. In cooperation with the company Goettfert, we have succeeded in integrating highly sensitive pressure sensors into the capillary rheometer, which enable the detection of the smallest pressure instabilities with high time resolution and thus allow the detection and identification of different types of flow instabilities.
The partitioned-plate geometry allows LAOS experiments without the typical problems of sample loss at the edge of the geometry and thus enables higher amplitudes. The joint development with TA-Instruments was presented as a poster at the international rheology conference in Lisbon in 2012 (see below) and has been commercially available since 2013.
Download the poster from the "XVIth Congress on Rheology" held August 5-10, 2012 at Lisbon, Portugal.
