College of Engineering
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Overview
Mission and Program
The missions of the RRC are to generate useful knowledge in the field of rheology through research and to disseminate this knowledge through publications, seminars and graduate education.
The current value of all open rheological research projects exceeds $4 million. These funds support 35 graduate and post-doctoral students and their rheology research projects.
The RRC sponsors the world's only weekly seminar series on rheology. The series has featured more than 200 invited lectures by world-class researchers. Visiting researchers meet with RRC students and faculty to exchange ideas and collaborate. The RRC also distributes a report series, giving contributors an opportunity to circulate their ideas before publication in archival journals.
Basic Research
As part of an institution of higher education, the RRC shares the university's distinctive goals of contributing to knowledge and training others to do likewise. Through basic research, trained RRC scientists follow the dictates of their own curiosity to insightfully identify contemporary problems in applied rheology, and to solve them creatively. This work is always undertaken with the general aim of increasing our understanding of the way in which materials behave. It encompasses fundamental aspects of rheology, such as investigating effects of intermolecular forces on rheology, to applied aspects, such as design of plastics processing equipment. Basic research involves a search for general principles that are widely applicable, and which aid technology by inspiring new ideas and by shedding new light on existing processes.
Rheology research is a fruitful field for graduate education. The RRC offers the world's most extensive series of advanced lecture courses on polymers and rheology. These promote the development of mathematical skill, together with a detailed grasp of molecular and continuum theories, and a wide-ranging knowledge of polymer structure and properties.
Since the renaissance of rheology is comparatively new, there are many opportunities for students to make significant new contributions to knowledge, both in theory and experiment. Students use recently developed rheometers for their measurements, and are encouraged to design and construct new instrumentation. In so doing, they learn to work with machinists and other technicians; learn simple machining; and get help and advice from expert machinists. Students learn valuable communication skills by presenting seminars and preparing theses and publications.
The successful PhD student must therefore become part of an informed scientific leadership, able to tackle new problems without supervision; to keep up to date with the scientific literature and to realize its potential for technological applications; to work with others and to communicate his or her ideas and knowledge.
The RRC promotes research in rheology leading to MS and PhD degrees for students registered with one of the existing departments or interdisciplinary degree programs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The RRC also administers the Master of Engineering (Polymer Engineering and
Science), a course masters degree.
Details of departmental and interdisciplinary programs and further information about the lecture courses will be supplied upon request by the Rheology Assistant.
Professor Giacomin (right) confers with a graduate student on the insertion of a plastic plaque in the sliding plate rheometer. The device incorporates a shear stress transducer for measuring nonlinear viscoelastic properties. (50K JPG)
Above, flow instabilities and die-lip build-up in film blowing are studied in RRC labs. (60K JPG)
Undergraduate Education
The rheology courses include the Undergraduate Rheology Seminar and popular undergraduate electives. Intro. to Polymer Processing (ME417) has been taught every semester, at least twice per year, since 1946; the longest running course of this kind in North America. Macromolecular Hydrodynamics (ChE 525) is America's first senior elective on polymer rheology. More than half the bachelor's degree graduates in chemical engineering, chemistry and mechanical engineering land polymer-related jobs. The RRC fulfills an essential role in preparing these students for their careers.
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Last Modified: Tuesday, 06-Mar-2001 19:27:21 CST
