Evaluation of polymer rheology from drop spreading experiments

In this paper, spreading experiments on “heavy” polymer drops are performed. “Heavy” refers to large polymer drops, i.e., the radius of the drop, R, is much larger than the capillary length, κ^-1, so that the spreading is dictated by gravity. The zero-shear viscosity can be found from measurements of the time-dependent drop radius or vice versa. Viscosity values found from spreading experiments compare well with the viscosity values found from dynamic rheological experiments.