Rheometers

A rheometer is a laboratory device used to measure the way in which a liquid, suspension or slurry flows in response to applied forces. It is used for those fluids which cannot be defined by a single value of viscosity and therefore require more parameters to be set and measured than is the case for a viscometer. It measures the rheology of the fluid.

There are two distinctively different types of rheometers. Rheometers that control the applied shear stress or shear strain are called rotational or shear rheometers, whereas rheometers that apply extensional stress or extensional strain are extensional rheometers. Rotational or shear type rheometers are usually designed as either a native strain-controlled instrument (control and apply a user-defined shear strain which can then measure the resulting shear stress) or a native stress-controlled instrument (control and apply a user-defined shear stress and measure the resulting shear strain).

The word rheometer comes from the Greek, and means a device for measuring flow. In the 19th century it was commonly used for devices to measure electric current, until the word was supplanted by galvanometer and ammeter. It was also used for the measurement of flow of liquids, in medical practice (flow of blood) and in civil engineering (flow of water). This latter use persisted to the second half of the 20th century in some areas. Following the coining of the term rheology the word came to be applied to instruments for measuring the character rather than quantity of flow, and the other meanings are obsolete. (Principal Source: Oxford English Dictionary) The principle and working of rheometers is described in several texts.

A dynamic shear rheometer, commonly known as DSR is used for research and development as well as for quality control in the manufacture of a wide range of materials. Dynamic shear rheometers have been used since 1993 when Superpave was used for characterising and understanding high temperature rheological properties of asphalt binders in both the molten and solid state and is fundamental in order to formulate the chemistry and predict the end-use performance of these materials.

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