A sliding plate microgap rheometer for the simultaneous ... - KU Leuven

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Mar 31, 2011 - discharge machining (wire-EDM) technology. The spring constant K of the upper compound flexure has been designed to be 12750 N/m in ...
REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 82, 035121 (2011)

A sliding plate microgap rheometer for the simultaneous measurement of shear stress and first normal stress difference Seung Jae Baik, Paula Moldenaers, and Christian Clasena) Department of Chemical Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Willem de Croylaan 46, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

(Received 17 December 2010; accepted 2 March 2011; published online 31 March 2011) A new generation of the “flexure-based microgap rheometer” (the N-FMR) has been developed which is also capable of measuring, in addition to the shear stress, the first normal stress difference of micrometer thin fluid films. This microgap rheometer with a translation system based on compound spring flexures measures the rheological properties of microliter samples of complex fluids confined in a plane couette configuration with gap distances of h = 1–400 μm up to shear rates of γ˙ = 3000 s−1 . Feed back loop controlled precise positioning of the shearing surfaces with response times