It is essential to understand the extent of partial filling of the flight screw, the degree of fill, which is an operational variable of the twin-screw extruder (TSE). This article reports the first attempt to measure, in situ, the degree of fill in a rotating full-flight screw using a specialized light-section method for a TSE. The thickness of the resin sticking to the pushing side decreased with increasing rotational speed. The degree of fill is inversely proportional to the rotational speed and proportional to the feed rate. This result agreed well with the results suggested by the conventional analysis of flow in the TSEs. The fast Fourier transformation of the degree of fill time series indicated that the period of fluctuation correlated with the screw speed rather than the feed rate or throughput. (c) 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 65: 326-333, 2019