Temporal distributions: The basis for the development of mixing indexes for scale‐up of polymer processing equipment

New and better mixing criteria are needed to assess dispersive and distributive mixing efficiency in polymer processing equipment. Such criteria can serve the purpose of process optimization and machine scale‐up. In this work, the history of flow strength and shear stresses experienced by a number of particles in a twin‐flight, single‐screw extruder serve as the basis to produce temporal distributions of these parameters. In turn, the temporal distributions can be used for developing new mixing indexes for process optimization and scale‐up. Using models for dispersion kinetics and experimental data, calculations of agglomerate size distribution and average agglomerate size can be used as a dispersive mixing criterion.