High-throughput rheological characterization has applications in many industries, but dealing with molten polymers poses special challenges. For purposes of structure determination, however, rheology has potential advantages over GPC. There is currently no commercial rheometric device that can make rapid measurements on very small samples of molten polymers. However, descriptions of several devices designed to accomplish this have been described in presentations and publications. The deformations involved include capillary, torsional shear and squeeze flows. Each of these approaches has its advantages and disadvantages, and it is not yet clear which, if any, of them will be able to meet the stringent requirements of high-throughput characterization.
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