Guill Tool, a global leader in extrusion tooling, recently announced that its state-of-the-art rheology lab is offering its services for a fee to all those interested. Measuring the flow characteristics of plastics and rubber helps predict how a customer’s material will flow through the company’s extrusion dies before production. In addition, tooling geometry is virtually optimized, and the project can be viewed in 3D CAD. Machines used include a rotational rheometer, scanning calorimeter, thermal conductivity meter, and a new CT scanner.
The rotational rheometer quickly generates visco-elastic data for polymer melts, precisely capturing polymer melt properties. The test temperature ranges between ambient and 300°C. The lab’s scanning calorimeter characterizes the thermal properties of a polymer sample, such as crystallization temperature, glass transition temperature, and heat capacity of the sample. Knowing these thermal properties permits the simulation of shear heating and hot and cold spots in the flow area.
Guill’s thermal conductivity meter is used to determine the thermal conductivity of the polymer sample across a range of temperatures. Capable of high-definition measuring, the newly purchased IM-8000 Series Image Dimension Measurement System has triple the detection performance. With a 20- 20-megapixel CMOS sensor and a new algorithm for stable edge detection high-accuracy measurement is available on up to 300 features. Greater simulation accuracy reduces the number of physical reworks needed.
The in-house lab provides faster turnaround on test results, reducing delays during the design process and offering better control over the testing parameters. The result is a high-quality part delivered on time.