The rheological behavior of ceramic/polymer mixtures for coextrusion processing

Coextrusion is a novel fabrication method for ceramic processing. However, the rheological behavior of ceramic/polymer blends during batching and extrusion in a coextrusion process is not well understood. In this study, the rheological properties of BaTiO3/polymer mixtures during batching in a highshear rate mixer (C.W. Brabender) were investigated and several models were evaluated. The BaTiO3/ polymer mixtures exhibited shear thinning behavior with a yield stress. The power-law model still fit for the data obtained from the high-shear rate mixer in the tested shear rate range. The results also showed that Bousmina’s model only fits well for the pure polymer melts. For the ceramic/polymer mixtures, large deviations from Bousmina’s model were observed.