Specifications

Windows 2000/Vista/XP/7

Pentium 4 2GHz, 128MB RAM, 40GB disk drive, 1280x1024 display resolution. A single USB port is required for connection to the rheometer.

Manual crosshead control

Temperature zone control

Pre-condition sample (thermal stabilisation and compression)

Run pre-defined test

Purge barrel contents

Details of all transducer configuration, including calibration information, is held in a database, so working with multiple transducers is made more convenient. The software contains routines to assist with multi-point calibration of pressure and force transducers

Database of available dies

Support for capillary, orifice and rectangular slot dies

Shear rate sequence – twin bore

Shear stress sequence (constant pressure)

Thermal degradation tests

Pressure vs volume test

Melt fracture test

Melt rupture test

User defined test (script based)

Low-pass filtering available

Recorded data: 2x pressure, 3x temperature, piston speed, piston position, time, user-defined acquisition channels

Test progress bar

Real time graphs of pressures, speed and position

Real-time calculation and graphing of rheological properties

Automatic or manual

Calculation of shear and extensional viscosity

Calculation of power law index (n)

Bagley and Rabinowitsch correction

Non-Newtonian index

Carreau, Cross, power law and log polynomial curve fits

Shear rate, melt volume, volumetric flow rate

Facility to use data from the standard channels (force, pressure, temperature), or user-provided measurement channels to derive further curves

A powerful set of functions is provided to allow user-defined calculations to be made on the captured data.

The software allows you to work in whatever units you choose – it provides by default SI, cgs and US units, but also allows you to define your own. All numeric quantities (measured data and documentation information) are recorded along with their units, and when results are calculated their resulting units are calculated too, ensuring consistency and greatly reducing the potential for errors.

Two types of documentation information are saved along with the test data: automatically recorded documentation (transducer and die information for example), and user-entered documentation. Documentation fields are configurable depending on your particular requirements, and fields can be made mandatory to ensure that critical information is recorded for every test.

Graphs are used for displaying measured and calculated data. Multiple tests and multiple quantities may be displayed on the same graph. Highly configurable appearance including colours, automatic or manual axis scaling, linear or logarithmic scaling, user-defined or automatic labelling. Graphs may be zoomed to examine the data in detail.

Tables are used to display calculated results or documentation information. The results from multiple tests may be displayed in the same table. Flexible formatting includes colours, fonts, column headings, units and the format of numeric results.

Data can be exported to Microsoft Excel (Office 95 onwards) in native file format. There is also the facility to export data in CSV (comma separated values) format, compatible with almost all numeric analysis packages. The software also includes a graphical editor to prepare curves for publishing.

Test data may be saved either in individual files, or in a test database (Microsoft Access format). Multiple databases may be created, for different users or different applications. Test data stored in files may be copied into the database and vice versa. A powerful search tool can be used to interrogate the database and find tests that match particular criteria: for example, by the date of the test, the type of sample, a shear viscosity falling outside specified limits or a test performed at a particular temperature.

An auto-save facility ensures that data from a test is never lost, and also imposes a consistent naming scheme for data files. Data can be automatically saved to files or to the test database.

The software provides for three password-protected user levels. The software functions available to each level may be defined, preventing access to sensitive operations that might affect the accuracy of the data.

Entire software configurations, or partial configurations, may be saved and later restored. This facility is useful both as a back-up mechanism and also to allow quick switching between different test types (for example, single bore and twin bore).

Full context sensitive help is available, together with a printed and an on-line manual.