Understanding Rheology of Thermoplastic Polymers

Rheological testing of thermoplastic materials can be performed on both solid samples and on melts. This is important because the choice of material form and physical state is more than a matter of convenience. For example, product performance issues usually are related to solid samples properties whereas process ability issues can be correlated with polymer melt properties. This application note explains how thermoplastic solids are tested using mechanical spectroscopy and demonstrates the effect of molecular structure and morphology.