Nonaffine network structural model for molten Low-Density polyethylene and High-Density Polyethylene in oscillatory shear

Abstract

We propose molten polymer’s entanglement network deformation to be nonaffine and use transient network structural theory with the revised Liu’s kinetics rate equation and the revised upper convected Maxwell constitutive equation to establish a nonaffine network structural constitutive model for studying the rheological behavior of molten Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) in oscillatory shear. As a result, when the strain amplitude or frequency increases, the shear stress amplitude increases. At the same time, the accuracy of the nonaffine network model is higher than that of affine network model. It is clear that there is a small amount of nonaffine network deformation for LDPE melts which have long-chain branches, and there is a larger amount of nonaffine network deformation in oscillatory shear for HDPE melts which has no long-chain branches. So we had better consider the network deformation nonaffine when we establish the constitutive equations of polymer melts in oscillatory shear.