Rheology as a quality control instrument

Quality control in polymer production is a decisive success factor today, g rowing in importance with the steadily increasing demands regarding the per formance of polymeric materials. Rheological methods are ideal for applicat ion in quality control, as they allow to draw conclusions regarding both mo lecular structure and processability from their results. This is especially true for the linear viscoelastic parameters of a polymer melt. Using sever al examples from industrial practice, the capacity of rheological measureme nts to clarify quality problems like degradation effects or non-homogeneity is demonstrated. The question of precision and reliability is finally addr essed, based on the results of two round-robin tests.