Simulating startup shear of entangled polymer melts

Cao, J. and Likhtman, A. E. (2015) Simulating startup shear of entangled polymer melts. ACS Macro Letters, 4 (12). pp. 1376-1381. ISSN 2161-1653 doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.5b00708

Abstract/Summary

Start-up shear rheology is a standard experiment used for characterizing polymer flow, and to test various models of polymer dynamics. A rich phenomenology is developed for behavior of entangled monodisperse linear polymers in such tests, documenting shear stress overshoots as a function of shear rates and molecular weights. A tube theory does a reasonable qualitative job at describing these phenomena, although it involves several drastic approximations and the agreement can be fortuitous. Recently, Lu and coworkers published several papers [e.g. Lu {\it et al.} {\it ACS Macro Lett}. 2014, 3, 569-573] reporting results from molecular dynamics simulations of linear entangled polymers, which contradict both theory and experiment. Based on these observations, they made very serious conclusions about the tube theory, which seem to be premature. In this letter, we repeat simulations of Lu {\it et al.} and systematically show that neither their simulation results, nor their comparison with theory are confirmed.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/47391
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Publisher	American Chemical Society
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