Measuring densities of polymers by magneto-archimedes levitation

In magneto-Archimedes levitation, a polymer can be levitated to a balanced position, and its levitation height is mainly related to the density of the polymer. Here, a novel method for measuring the density of polymers based on magneto- Archimedes levitation is proposed. For a designed measurement device, an equation can be fitted by a series of experiments with standard density glass beads. Then, the polymer's density can be calculated via the equation. In this paper, a device with magnets at a distance of 60 mm was chosen as an example. Experimental results showed that the proposed method could measure all types of polymer with an accuracy of 0.002-0.01 g/cm(3). Moreover, the proposed method can clearly distinguish between polymers with small density differences (<0.03 g/cm(3)). Because of its high accuracy, high sensitivity, low cost and convenience, the proposed method could be widely used in polymer testing, especially in density-based testing. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.