Basic principle and good practices of rheology for polymers for teachers and beginners

Abstract

Abstract We present a basic principle and good practices of the rheology of polymers, particularly for teachers or lecturers at colleges or universities for educational purposes, as well as for beginner researchers who may refer to this article as their self-learning resources. Basic consideration of the experimental methods using parallel-plate oscillatory rheometer and step-by-step guidelines for the estimation of the power law dependence of storage, G ′ and loss, G ″ modulus as well as the estimation of the relaxation time at <m:math xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"><m:msubsup><m:mi>f</m:mi><m:mrow><m:mtext> </m:mtext><m:mi>cross</m:mi></m:mrow><m:mrow><m:mtext> </m:mtext><m:msup><m:mi>G</m:mi><m:mo>′</m:mo></m:msup><m:mo>−</m:mo><m:msup><m:mi>G</m:mi><m:mo>′′</m:mo></m:msup></m:mrow></m:msubsup></m:math> ${f}_{\,\mathrm{cross}}^{\,{G}^{\prime }-{G}^{\prime \prime }}$ at terminal zone using various approaches such as commercial graphical software, manual graphical approach and commercial rheometer software are highlighted. Good practices for data interpretation using different approaches are described and compared where the outcomes revealed the manual graphical approach or commercial graphical software yield comparable results with the commercial rheometer software. In order to have better insight, several examples and exercises which are applicable for teaching and self-learning activities are also provided.