Rheology
Rheology (or Rheometry) is a large field of science that is the study of the flow of matter, primarily in the liquid state, but also as ‘soft solids’ or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applied force (Wikipedia).
Particular Sciences offers an unusually wide selection of specialist instruments and technologies to characterise materials (maybe not that surprising as this is what we do) and this technology page groups the products and the disparate instruments together.
This ranges from classic Viscosity to special cases like Dilute Solution Viscosity to Oscillating tests, to Microfluidics up to Capillary Rheology used with quite stiff materials. Then there are dedicated tests like the DSR used for “Asphalt” testing. At the finer end we now find ourselves studying inside the matrix of suspensions with Microrheology, looking at interactions at the submicron level that influence the bulk properties of products for formulation purposes. We even look at the flow of Powders and work to improve processes with dry matter.
Rheology categories | Product |
Rheology – rotational | Kinexus |
Rheology – capillary | Rosand |
Viscosity | Lamy |
Microrheology – bulk high viscosity | Rheolaser |
Microrheology – low viscosity | Zetasizer |
Dilute Solution Viscosity | Viscotek DSV |
Interfacial Shear Rheology | Biolin ISR |
Dual Capillary | Viscosizer |
Powder Flow | Freeman FT4 |