Rheological fundamentals for extrusion of wood plastics composites

Rheometric studies of a polypropylene-based wood plastic composite were performed and its rheological characteristics were developed by determining the parameters of the Klein and Ostwald-de Waele equations. Simulation studies of the extrusion process were performed to evaluate the applied rheological models. Good results for modeling the extrusion process were obtained by using a relatively simple Ostwald-de Waele rheological model. For this model, the available material databases provide much more data than for the Klein model.