Our research seeks to advance the understanding and control of polymeric materials under flow through the use and development of advanced measurement technology. The motivation behind our effort is two-fold:

At a basic level, if one can conduct fundamental measurements of important phenomenon that occur during flow or processing, then one can achieve a deeper understanding of how to control the flow and the properties of the final product.

One example of this approach is our research into extrusion instabilities, where we are carrying out a detailed study of the flow fields that underlie the instability known as sharkskin. A second example is our investigation of the effects of confinement on the development of structure in sheared polymer blends.