1.06 - Viscoelasticity and Molecular Rheology

Abstract

This chapter contains a review of available models for describing unentangled and entangled polymer liquids such as polymer melts and solutions. These simple single-chain models are investigated by numerical solution of underlying stochastic differential equations, and then compared with the many chain molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The MD model contains only simple bead-spring potentials, which are supposed to contain all essential information about entanglements but not the chemical details. The tube model is criticized for containing many hidden assumptions and ambiguities and several alternative models are analyzed.