Rheometry

Your Operation Has Evolved - Your Instruments Should Too

Modern process improvement practices have been adopted nearly universally among manufacturing industries, and the testing equipment that Alpha Technologies provides is vital aspect of those practices.

In the infancy of rubber testing, the best rheological testing instrument was the operator with thirty years of experience. With black nose, lips teeth and fingernails, his job was to pinch, bite and sniff the rubber and decide if it was ready to release into production.

Then, in 1968, Monsanto released the R100 curemeter as a better, healthier and more accurate alternative to the human rheological tester, and established the groundwork for which modern polymer and rubber testing equipment is based upon.

The R100 Series – The Birth of the Modern Curemeter

The Monsanto R100 curemeter made it possible for rubber manufacturers to improve the quality of their products and the profitability of their operation. By replacing the subjective operators who made judgments on the quality of the product based on their experience with an objective testing instrument, engineers gained valuable information as to how the rubber was actually curing in a controlled environment. This information, along with the assistance of our material testing experts, provided our customers with exponential process improvements and cost savings.

Although Alpha discontinued new sales of R100 instruments when the upgraded ODR 2000 series was introduced, there are thousands of R100s still in use worldwide, which speaks volumes about the enduring quality and capability of these instruments.

The Mooney Viscometer – The Standard for Viscosity Testing 

The Mooney Viscometer measures the effect of time and temperature on the viscosity of rubber or other polymer compounds.

Alpha’s Mooney Viscometer was one of the early testing instruments used in rubber mixing, quality and testing. The Mooney is so ingrained in the rubber industry that it is the standard by which manufacturers compare all others.

Alpha Technologies’ current Mooney Viscometers, the MV2000 and TechPro visTech+, deliver trusted data to manufacturers of all shapes and sizes, from single plant locations to world class global manufacturers of products you use every day

The 2000 Series of Rheometers – Advancing Technology to Meet the Needs of Modern Manufacturing 

The success of the R100 series drove our rheologists and engineers to develop more improved ways of simulating the manufacturing process and evaluating materials. After all, one cannot improve what one does not measure, and the Alpha team of material testing experts was determined to find new ways to not only test for the quality of materials as they came out of the mixer, but to also begin to predict how those materials will perform in the manufacturing process.

The ODR 2000 – The Next Generation Oscillating Disc Rheometer 

The original R100 was revolutionary, but the ODR 2000 series oscillating disc rheometer capitalized upon newly available digital technology to vastly improve upon the reliability and reproducibility of the cure data.

• Digital temperature controllers are built into the control boards, allowing for greater control and accuracy of sample temperature.
• The use of a synchronous motor improves efficiency, repeatability and reproducibility.
• Easily removable dies reduce the time between tests to just 5 minutes.

The Moving Die Rheometer – The Next Significant Advancement in Curemeter Technology

The material testing experts at Alpha Technologies continually strive to improve the technology and techniques used in their instrument. Like the introduction of R100, the MDR 2000 shook the industry with its substantial advantages over previous techniques.

The Moving Die Rheometer improved upon the Oscillating Disc Rhemeter technology in several significant ways:

• The dies are directly heated and enclose a thinner, smaller rubber mass than an ODR. This means significantly less thermal lag at the beginning of a test and a more accurate temperature reading.
• The test cavity is sealed to maintain contact with the cured specimen. This creates a test environment that more closely simulates the manufacturing process and provides more accurate, repeatable and reproducible data from instrument to instrument and from plant to plant.
• The lower MDR die oscillates, and torque is measured at the upper die. This separation of deformation and torque measurement allows separation of torque into viscous components. This gives you more information upon which to base your quality, R&D and production decisions and assures that you make better decisions about the characteristics of the formulation. This means fewer false positives and more confidence about the overall quality of the product.

Manufacturers who migrated to the MDR experienced greater testing efficiency and confidence in their data that they had not had before.

Rubber Process Analyzer – Expanding the Capabilities of the Rheometer Instrumentation

As technologies have improved, materials testing has expanded beyond simple viscometers and curemeters that only measure some of the rheological properties needed to make improvements to your process. Rheological testing now includes a dynamic mechanical rheological tester called the Rubber Process Analyzer.

Alpha’s RPA 2000 series of rheometers have transformed the world of materials testing. In the past, multiple samples across multiple testing instruments were needed. Required testing involving the use of a capillary rheomoeter, Mooney viscometer, ODR/MDR, Tensile, Hardness, Density and Dispersion testers takes hours before results are ready to approve and release a single batch of rubber, or to evaluate the properties of experimental compounds. This not only cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in instruments, but it also took valuable hours of time.

The RPA 2000 and its production variant the PPA 2000 are dynamic mechanical rheological testers that can be used in the quality lab, R&D lab and on the production floor and provide processability, cure, and post cure information about your compounds. The RPA is not a direct replacement for all your instruments, but Alpha’s team of material testing experts can easily instruct you on how to obtain the same types of information as provided by all those other instruments.

The Rubber Process Analyzer is the current benchmark for rheological testing equipment in the industry. Global, world-class organizations have adopted RPA technology to assure that their products are of the highest quality, consistency and profitability worldwide.