Wall Slip-Free Viscosity Determination of Filled Rubber Compounds Using Steady-State Shear Measurements.

The high-pressure capillary rheometer (HPCR) represents a state-of-the-art instrument for the determination of rheological properties for plastics and rubber compounds. Rubber compounds have an increased tendency to exhibit flow anomalies depending on the compound ingredients and the processing parameters. Combined with non-isothermal effects due to dissipative material heating, this causes rheological material measurements and the resulting material parameters derived from them to be affected by errors, since the fundamental analytical and numerical calculation approaches assume isothermal flow and wall adhesion. In this paper, the applicability of the empirical rheological transfer function of the Cox-Merz rule, which establishes a relationship between shear viscosity measured with a HPCR and complex viscosity measured with a closed cavity rheometer (CCR), is investigated. The Cox-Merz relation could not be verified for an unfilled EPDM raw polymer or for filled, practical rubber compounds. Using a closed cavity rheometer, a methodology based on ramp tests is then introduced to collect wall slip-free steady-state shear viscosity data under isothermal conditions. The generated data show high agreement with corrected viscosity data generated using the HPCR, while requiring less measurement effort.

Numerical Simulation of Solids Conveying in Grooved Feed Sections of Single Screw Extruders.

For plastic processing extruders with grooved feed sections, the design of the feed section by means of analytical calculation models can be useful to reduce experimental costs. However, these models include assumptions and simplifications that can significantly decrease the prediction accuracy of the throughput due to complex flow behavior. In this paper, the accuracy of analytical modeling for calculating the throughput in a grooved barrel extruder is verified based on a statistical design of experiments. A special focus is placed on the assumptions made in the analytics of a backpressure-independent throughput, the assumption of a block flow and the differentiation of the solids conveying into different conveying cases. Simulative throughput tests with numerical simulation software using the discrete element method, as well as experimental throughput tests, serve as a benchmark. Overall, the analytical modeling already shows a very good calculation accuracy. Nevertheless, there are some outliers that lead to larger deviations in the throughput. The model predominantly overestimates the throughputs, whereby the origin of these deviations is often in the conveying angle calculation. Therefore, a regression-based correction factor for calculating the conveying angle is developed and implemented.