General Electric Company

Ronald Dale Craddock

Ye-Gang Lin

Michael Shoen Davis

Vikram Gopal

A system and method for measuring viscosity, melt flow index (MFI), and melt volume rate (MVR) of a polymer melt in real-time during an extrusion process to provide quick and accurate feedback for process control. The system includes a polymer processing rate sensor ( ), a polymer melt temperature sensor ( ), an extruder pressure sensor ( ), and a die head temperature sensor ( ) for taking in-line measurements during the extrusion process. The in-line measurements are made on the main process stream of the polymer melt, with the determination of viscosity, MFI, and MVR based on these measured values and those obtained during a calibration run with polymers having known properties. The invention can be used in any polymer compounding and extrusion process utilizing die opening with any constant geometry for monitoring quality and providing feedback for process control.

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McLeansboro, IL, United States of America

Ronald Dale Craddock