An experimental study of the polymer behavior in a starve-fed single screw extrusion is presented. Various polymeric materials, semicrystalline low density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), and (LDPE/PS) polyblends were investigated at various operating conditions. A screw pulling-out technique was used to study polymer behavior along the screw. The solid conveying, melting position, the extent of starvation, and the fully filled regions were observed. Polymer samples were stripped off from the screw which was removed from the machine to investigate melting mechanism. It was seen that filling of the screw channel increases with the flow rate at a fixed screw speed, and decreases with the screw speed at a fixed flow rate. Contiguous solids melting mechanism was observed for flood fed extrusion, but it was not observed for starve-fed extrusion. A new two-stage physical model of polymer melting has been proposed with conductive mechanism for melting in the starve-fed region and dispersed melting mechanism in the fully filled region. Melting action seems to be faster for starve feeding than for flood feeding, since the pellets are not compacted into a dense solid bed. It was observed that the pressure and power consumption considerably decrease with starvation. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2012. (C) 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers