Application of the GIMP software in the analysis of birefringence images obtained in a multipass rheometer

作者：Castro Andre M.; Pereira Juliana O.^*; Farias Thais M.; Secchi Argimiro R.; Cardozo Nilo Sergio M.

来源：Rheologica Acta, 2018, 57(2): 113-126.

DOI：10.1007/s00397-017-1063-7

• Birefringence
• Multipass rheometer
• Polystyrene
• GIMP

Flow-induced birefringence is a technique with numerous potential applications in polymers, because the bright and dark fringe patterns of the birefringence images can be related to principal stress difference (PSD) profile along the flow centerline. In this work, we developed an easy-to-use methodology for birefringence image processing using the GIMP open-source software. In order to illustrate its application, images obtained in previous work during the flow of two grades of general purpose polystyrene through the slit-die geometry in the multipass rheometer MPR4, located at the University of Cambridge, UK, were reprocessed. The results showed that the PSD module profile along the flow centerline obtained with the proposed methodology is more accurate than the manual technique and is obtained with shorter processing time.

• 出版日期2018-2