Wall Slip-Free Viscosity Determination of Filled Rubber Compounds Using Steady-State Shear Measurements

The high-pressure capillary rheometer (HPCR) represents a state-of-the-art instrument for the determination of rheological properties for plastics and rubber compounds. Rubber compounds have an increased tendency to exhibit flow anomalies depending on the compound ingredients and the processing parameters. Combined with non-isothermal effects due to dissipative material heating, this causes rheological material measurements and the resulting material parameters derived from them to be affected by errors, since the fundamental analytical and numerical calculation approaches assume isothermal flow and wall adhesion. In this paper, the applicability of the empirical rheological transfer function of the Cox-Merz rule, which establishes a relationship between shear viscosity measured with a HPCR and complex viscosity measured with a closed cavity rheometer (CCR), is investigated. The Cox-Merz relation could not be verified for an unfilled EPDM raw polymer or for filled, practical rubber compounds. Using a closed cavity rheometer, a methodology based on ramp tests is then introduced to collect wall slip-free steady-state shear viscosity data under isothermal conditions. The generated data show high agreement with corrected viscosity data generated using the HPCR, while requiring less measurement effort.