• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Rheology Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.3-6
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• 2000

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.191-214
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• 2008

Polypropylene/layered silicate nanocomposites containing maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene were prepared by melt compounding and their rheological behavior was investigated in shear flow. Transient and steady shear flows were simulated numerically by using the K-BKZ integral constitutive equation along with experimentally determined damping functions under dynamic oscillatory and step strain shear flows. Nonlinear shear responses were predicted with the K-BKZ constitutive equation using two different damping functions such as the Wagner and PSM models. It was observed that PP-g-MAH compatibilized PP/layered silicate nanocomposites have stronger and earlier shear thinning and higher steady shear viscosity than pure PP resin or uncompatibilized nanocomposites at low shear rate regions. Strong damping behavior of the PP/layered silicate nanocomposite was predicted under large step shear strain and considered as a result of the strain-induced orientation of the organoclay in the shear flow. Steady shear viscosity of the pure PP and uncompatibilized nanocomposite predicted by the K-BKZ model was in good agreement with the experimental results at all shear rate regions. However, the model was inadequate to predict the steady shear viscosity of PP-g-MAH compatibilized nanocomposites quantitatively because the K-BKZ model overestimates strain-softening damping behavior for PP/layered silicate nanocomposites.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.203-211
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• 2009

In flows with deformation rates larger than the inverse Rouse time of the polymer chain, chains are stretched and their confining tubes become increasingly anisotropic. The pressures exerted by a polymer chain on the walls of an anisotropic confinement are anisotropic and limit chain stretch. In the Molecular Stress Function (MSF) model, chain stretch is balanced by an interchain pressure term, which is inverse proportional to the $3^{rd}$ power of the tube diameter and is characterized by a tube diameter relaxation time. We show that the tube diameter relaxation time is equal to 3 times the Rouse time in the limit of small chain stretch. At larger deformations, we argue that chain stretch is balanced by two restoring tensions with weights of 1/3 in the longitudinal direction of the tube (due to a linear spring force) and 2/3 in the lateral direction (due to the nonlinear interchain pressure), both of which are characterized by the Rouse time. This approach is shown to be in quantitative agreement with transient and steady-state elongational viscosity data of two monodisperse polystyrene melts without using any nonlinear parameter, i.e. solely based on the linear-viscoelastic characterization of the melts. The same approach is extended to model experimental data of four styrene-butadiene random copolymer melts in shear flow. Thus for monodisperse linear polymer melts, for the first time a constitutive equation is presented which allows quantitative modeling of nonlinear extension and shear rheology on the basis of linear-viscoelastic data alone.