Rheology and Measurement of Intrinsic Viscosity:

The study of flow and deformation of the liquid or soft materials comes under Rheology. The flow and deformation of a material are influenced by its viscosity, and a small sample rheometer can be used to find strain rate of that fluid material. Strain rate actually indicates the distance over which a material moves amidst an external force. So this stress-strain relationship in different materials is analyzed under rheology. There are various industrial applications in which intrinsic viscosity is taken for quality control.

An appropriate rheometer for you:

Simulating process and quality checking system mostly use capillary and torque rheometers, whereas dynamic rotational viscometers are recommended for assessing a resin’s molecular structure.

Capillary rheometer is proved to be a more sophisticated version of viscometer that can measure the shear rate at multiple points on the curve. It helps to determine whether a material is fit for the further process and application or not. The manufacturers like RheoSense are there to offer the improved version embedded with advanced software and hardware accessories that expand the range of testing capabilities.

Small sample rheometer for precision reading:

Viscometer-Rheometer-on-a-Chip (VROC) is the latest and high-end device to measure viscosity. It combines microfluidic and MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) technologies that can measure the accurate viscosity of a fluid material; even of a small quantity of both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids. In technical words, this feature can give you high shear rate viscosity measurements up to as little as 20 microliters of sample.

There are microfluidic devices in this version that can read high shear rates without encountering flow stability. The VROC viscometers can measure viscosity by maintaining complete enclosure of fluid materials, so they don’t evaporate during the measurement procedure. Such small sample rheometers are widely used in several industrial applications and protein therapeutics.

Advancement in rheometers: 

The accuracy in the viscosity reading depends on a lot how advanced your rheometer or viscometer is. It’s a precision instrument designed with a geometric configuration to measure a wide range of viscosities via strain and strain rate. Different materials respond to stress differently and strain rate varies. This variation is precisely measured with the help of advanced techniques by the automatic viscometers. After that, the flowing behavior of the materials is quantified in material properties such as viscosity, elasticity, and modulus.

MEMS and Microfluidics are the latest and highly efficient technologies to measure viscosity. They can give accurate results of a fluid’s viscosity in different environments and setups.