In this study, an ultrasonic technique was employed to obtain pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) rela­tionship of polymer melt by measuring ultrasonic velocities under various temperatures and pressures. The proposed technique was applied to on-line monitoring of injection molding process as an attempt to predict quality of molded parts. From the comparison based on Tait equation, it was confirmed that the PVT behav­ior of a polymer is well described by the variation of ultrasonic velocities measured within the polymer medium. In addition, the changes in part weight and moduli were successfully predicted by combining the data collected from ultrasonic technique and artificial neural network algorithm. The results found from this study suggest that the proposed technique can be effectively utilized to monitor the evolution of solid­ification within the mold by measuring ultrasonic responses of various polymers during injection molding process. Such data are expected to provide a critical basis for the accurate prediction of final performance of molded parts.

The control of the rheological properties of a fluid during processing is important and can determine the efficiency of the production in addition to the performance of the final product. The vast majority of process fluids are viscoelastic, hence an instrument that measures both the viscous and elastic properties of the material during processing would be of great practical use. However, most in-line instruments commercially available to date are only capable of measuring viscosity at a single shear rate. An in-line rheometer that measures both the viscous and elastic properties of fluids over a wide range of shear rates simultaneously has been described in a previous publication (Glasscock et at., 2003) in which the results of measurements on flowing sunflower oil were presented. Before this instrument can be used in an industrial situation, it must be demonstrated that the generated results are the same as, or bear some fixed relationship to, the results obtained by conventional off-line rheometers. To this end, the present investigation describes the measurements of a standard reference fluid, polyisobutylene dissolved in 2,6,10,14-tetramethylpentadecane, labelled SRM2490 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the USA. The results obtained using the in-line rheometer show remarkably good correlation for viscosity, using a modified Cox­Merz rule, with the results supplied with the reference material from NIST.

Colloidal coating solution was prepared to enhance the hydrophilic property of the film surface. Water and ethanol were used as the dispersion media and (glycidoxypropyl) trimethoxysilane (GPS) as a binder in the colloidal silica coatings. Ethylene diamine was added to the colloidal silica solution as the curing agent. The colloidal silica solution was regarded as a hard-sphere suspension model with low volume fraction of the silica particles. Rheological properties of the silica suspensions modified with GPS have been investigated as a function of pH and concentration. The acidic solution showed high viscosity change by fast hydrolysis reaction and adsorption of the organic binders on the surface of silica particles. However, the hydrolysis was slow at the basic condition and the binders combined with themselves by condensation. The viscosity change was smallest at pH 7. The viscosity increased with the curing time after adding ethylenediamine, and the increase of viscosity at low pH was higher than that at high pH. The hydrophilic properties of the coating film were investigated by the contact angle of water and film surface. The smallest contact angle was shown under the strong acidic condition of pH 2.

High Deborah or Weissenberg number problems in viscoelastic flow modeling have been known formidably difficult even in the inertialess limit. There exists almost no result that shows satisfactory accuracy and proper mesh convergence at the same time. However recently, quite a breakthrough seems to have been made in this field of computational rheology. So called matrix-logarithm (here we name it tensor-logarithm) formulation of the viscoelastic constitutive equations originally written in terms of the conformation tensor has been suggested by Fattal and Kupferman (2004) and its finite element implementation has been first presented by Hulsen (2004). Both the works have reported almost unbounded convergence limit in solving two benchmark problems. This new formulation incorporates proper polynomial interpolations of the log­arithm for the variables that exhibit steep exponential dependence near stagnation points, and it also strictly preserves the positive definiteness of the conformation tensor. In this study, we present an alternative pro­cedure for deriving the tensor-logarithmic representation of the differential constitutive equations and pro­vide a numerical example with the Leonov model in 4:1 planar contraction flows. Dramatic improvement of the computational algorithm with stable convergence has been demonstrated and it seems that there exists appropriate mesh convergence even though this conclusion requires further study. It is thought that this new formalism will work only for a few differential constitutive equations proven globally stable. Thus the math­ematical stability criteria perhaps play an important role on the choice and development of the suitable con­stitutive equations. In this respect, the Leonov viscoelastic model is quite feasible and becomes more essential since it has been proven globally stable and it offers the simplest form in the tensor-logarithmic formulation.

Poly(o-ethoxy)aniline (PEOA)/organoclay nanocomposite was prepared via a solvent intercalation using chloroform as a cosolvent with organically modified montmorillonite (OMMT) clay. The PEOA initially synthesized from a chemical oxidation polymerization in an acidic condition at pH = 1 was intercalated into interlayers of the clay with $25\;wt{\%}$ clay content. Electrical conductivity of the PEOA/OMMT nano­composite was found to be controlled via the intercalating process. The synthesized PEOA/OMMT nano­composite was characterized via an XRD and a TGA, and then adopted as an electrorheological (ER) material. The PEOA/OMMT synthesized with controllable electrical conductivity without a dedoping pro­cess was found to show typical ER characteristics possessing a yield stress from both steady state and dynamic measurements under an applied electric field.

Properties of polymer based nanocomposites depend on dispersion state of embedded fillers. In order to examine the effect of dispersion state on rheological properties, a new bi-mode FENE dumbbell model was proposed. The FENE dumbbell model includes two separate ensemble sets of dumbbells with different fric­tion coefficients, which simulate behavior of well dispersed and aggregated carbon nanotubes (CNTs). A new parameter indicating dispersion state of the CNT was proposed to account for degree of dispersion quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Rheological material functions in elongational, steady shear, and oscillatory shear flows were obtained numerically. The CNT/epoxy nanocomposites with different dis­persion state were prepared depending on whether a solvent is used for the dispersion of CNTs or not. Dis­persion state of the CNT in the epoxy nanocomposites was morphologically characterized by the field emission scanning electronic microscope and the transmission electron microscope images. It was found that the numerical prediction was in a good agreement with experimental results especially for steady state shear flow.

Linear high-density polyethylene (PE) was controlled to induce strain-hardening behavior by introducing a small amount of second component with an anisotropic structure. In order to form an anisotropic structure in the PE matrix, the polymer was extruded through a twin-screw extruder, and the structure was controlled by varying the extrusion conditions. Depending on conditions, the second component formed a film, thread and droplet structure. If the second component was kept rigid, the morphology evolution could be delayed and the second component could maintain its film or thread structure without further relaxation. In par­ticular, the second component of the thread structure made a physical network and gave rise to remarkable strain hardening behavior under high extension. This study suggests a new method that induces strain hard­ening behavior by introducing a physically networked second component into the linear polymer melt. This result is anticipated to improve the processibility of linear polymers especially when extensional flow is dominant, and to contribute to our understanding of strain hardening behavior.

In this study the deformation of liquid-air interface of Newtonian or Boger fluids filled between two par­allel-plates geometry was investigated when two surfaces were separated at a constant speed. The interface between the fluid and air showed either stable or unstable deformation depending on experimental con­ditions. Repeated experiments for a wide range of experimental conditions revealed that the deformation mode could be classified into three types: 'stable region', 'fingering' and 'cavitation'. The experimental condition for the mode of deformation was plotted in a capillary number vs. Deborah number phase plane. It has been found that the elasticity of Boger fluids destabilize the interface deformation. On the other hand, the elasticity suppresses the formation and growth of cavities.

Simplified model of slide-fed curtain coating flow has been developed and tested in this study. It rests on the sheet profile equations for curtain thickness in curtain flow and its trajectory derived by the integral momentum balance approach of Higgins and Scriven (1979) and Kistler (1983). It also draws on the film profile equation of film thickness variation in flow down a slide. The equations have been solved in finite difference approximation by Newton iteration with continuation. The results show that how inertia (Rey­nolds number), surface tension (capillary number), inclination angle of the slide, and air pressure difference across the curtain affect sheet trajectory and thickness profile. It has been revealed that approximate models can be useful to easily analyze coating flow dynamics without complex computations, giving qualitative agreement with full theory and with experiment.