The combination of shearing with X-ray diffraction is often applied for study of polymer processing.
The combination of rheology with shearing is especially interesting since it allows the quantitative determination of structural parameters such as interchain correlations and molecular orientations.

tnshear04.jpg (Tnshear04)
Shear device installed on the beamline
We have a parallel plate shear cell from Linkam. This shear cell can operate in the temperature range from -50° C to + 400° C. It is possible to use this cell with kapton or diamond windows.

 

A Couette shear cell (Leuven University) with two configurations is also available. In one configuration PMMA cylinders are used which have a high X-ray transparency. The other configuration is based upon cylinders made out of the high temperature resistant polymer Vespel. This can handle temperatures up to 175 °C.