A model to determine the residence time distribution (RTD) in a co-rotating
twin screw extruder is proposed. The method couples a thermomechanical app
roach with a chemical engineering approach and allows us to obtain the RTD
without a fitting parameter. The global residence time is obtained using Lu
dovic(R) twin screw modelling software and simple chemical reactors are cho
sen to depict the screw profile. Experiments were carried out to validate t
he model. The effects of feed rate and screw speed on the residence time di
stribution were studied. Results are in good agreement with the predictions
of the model.