The rheology and crystallization behavior of thermal liquid crystalline polymer (TLCP) resin with monomer ratio of hydroxybenzoic acid (HBA)∶6-hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid (HNA)=73∶27 is investigated in this study. The effects of parameters including dynamic shear frequency
shear rate
temperature and time on the linear and nonlinear rheological behavior are firstly discussed. It is pointed out that the intrinsic rigid characteristic of TLCP molecule is the main reason for the solid-like behavior at low frequency range and the failure of Cox-merz rule. Then the isothermal and nonisothermal crystallization behavior of TLCP is investigated based on rheology measurement characterizations. It shows that the crystallization rate decreases significantly as the cooling rate declines from 10 ℃/min to 1.5 ℃/min for TLCP resin from nematic phase. In addition
the isothermal crystallization behavior of TLCP melt is controlled by homogeneous nucleation and the corresponding crystal growth is in a three dimensional way with an Avrami point value of around 4. Moreover
it is found that increasing the molecular weight of TLCP resin contributes to decreasing the crystallization ability but has no influence on the crystallization way. This report confirms that it is an effective tool to study the mechanism of TLCP crystallization behavior by monitoring the rheology behavior of TLCP resin during cooling process.