1. Morphology and rheology of concentrated biphasic blends in steady shear flow
- Author
-
Thomas Jansseune, Jan Mewis, and Paula Moldenaers
- Subjects
chemistry.chemical_classification ,Shearing (physics) ,Materials science ,Polydimethylsiloxane ,Scanning electron microscope ,Mechanical Engineering ,Polymer ,Condensed Matter Physics ,Surface tension ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,chemistry ,Rheology ,Mechanics of Materials ,General Materials Science ,Polymer blend ,Composite material ,Shear flow - Abstract
The relation between morphology and the steady state rheological behavior has been investigated for blends of immiscible polymers, i.e., polydimethylsiloxane and polyisobutylene, and this over the full composition range. Cryogenic scanning electron microscopy has been used to obtain information about the morphology during shearing. By means of relaxation experiments the stresses have been decomposed in interfacial and component contributions. From the interfacial stress components the orientation of the inclusions could be estimated. These stresses do not provide a clear indication of the location of the phase inversion as they hardly change with concentration in the midconcentration range, they even seem to develop a local minimum around the 50/50 concentration. In this region fibrils can be observed that are nearly oriented in the flow direction. The values of the interfacial stress components are consistent with such a structure. The component contributions to the viscosity can also be explained on the same basis although the normal stresses are underestimated.
- Published
- 2003
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