The most common varieties are orifice, falling/moving piston, rotational, falling ball, vibrational, and capillary, which operate by measuring vibration, fluid pressure, and Coriolis forces.Ĭapillary viscometers utilize a U-shaped glass tube with bulbs at either end-one higher than the other. Many types of viscometers are used in research and development settings. Viscometers typically measure the drag between a moving liquid across a surface, a property indicative of a host of industrially relevant properties like the lubricating capacity of oil, the protein concentration during a biomanufacturing process, or the wetting characteristics of a liquid.
Viscometers measure the viscosity-the thickness or stickiness-of a liquid resulting from internal friction.
