Rheologica Acta, Vol.35, No.6, 645-655, 1996
The relaxation of linear flexible polymers which are slightly poly disperse
The relaxation of slightly poly-disperse linear flexible polymers has been expressed in a simplified blending rule which is presumed to be a weighted linear superposition of the relaxation spectra of mono-disperse components which constitute the blend. Discrete components are characterized by their molecular weight M(i), weight fraction w(i), and relaxation time spectrum H-i(lambda). In contrast to broadly distributed blends in which the small molecules mobilize the large ones and vice versa, we introduce the term ''slightly polydisperse'' for blends with molecular weight distributions narrow enough to have very little change in the longest relaxation times of each molecular weight component. The properties of this blending rule are analyzed and dynamic data is calculated for slightly poly-disperse polystyrene. As an application, the blending rule is used to determine the characteristic mono-disperse parameters (BSW parameters) of two materials, poly (vinyl methyl ether) and polycarbonate, for which we could not determine their BSW parameters directly since they were not available in nearly monodisperse form. The proposed blending rule can only be applied to systems in which all components are above the entanglement molecular weight, i.e. M(i) much greater than M(c).
Keywords:MOLECULAR-WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION;MOLTEN STANDARD POLYSTYRENES;ELASTICO-VISCOUS PROPERTIES;MOLAR MASS-DISTRIBUTION;MODE-COUPLING THEORY;VISCOELASTIC PROPERTIES;COMPLEX MODULI;ENTANGLED POLYMERS;BINARY BLENDS;MELTS