Jordi Labs offers different methods to assist in the determination of the physical properties of your materials.

Capillary Rheometry

Measures apparent viscosity (resistance to flow) over a broad range of shear rates and at varied temperatures, which are comparable to the conditions encountered in molding, calendaring, extrusion, etc. The data is commonly used to determine parameters, for lot-to-lot quality control, to measure processing degradation, which could reduce physical properties, and to study thermal stability. According to customer specifications, temperature, shear rate and other parameters are selected. In a “Shear Sweep” melted plastic is extruded through a capillary and the force at varied shear rates is determined. To determine Thermal Stability, melted plastic is extruded through a capillary after varied periods of residence time in the barrel of the extruder.

Flexural Test (Flex)

The Flexural Test provides the flexural modulus of a material as an indication of the material’s stiffness. Testing can be modified to simulate the temperature which recreates the intended end use conditions, since the physical properties of a material may differ depending on the surrounding temperature.

Impact Resistance (Impact)

This test measures a samples’s resistance to impact. Kinetic energy is applied to the material to promote breakage. The impact measurement relates to an objects’s durability.

Melt Flow

The sample is extruded through a tube of a specific length and diameter while being subjected to a fixed amount of weight at a fixed temperature. The time for extrusion is measured to calculate the melt flow index. This method is a low cost technique commonly used in quality control applications for polymer samples.

Tensile Strength Testing

Tensile strength tests measure the force required to break a sample and the extent of elongation of the sample at the break point. Data includes a stress-strain diagram related to the tensile modulus of the test specimen.

X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)

XRD is a technique that is often used for phase identification or for percent crystallinity determination, based on x-ray diffraction peaks.