Response of an entangled polymer solution to uniaxial and planar deformation

Abstract

Experimental data on homogeneous planar extension on well-characterized polymeric fluids are rare. As a result, the relationship between planar and uniaxial extensional viscosity is also unclear. We present measurements of the steady–state planar extensional viscosity of a well-characterized polymer solution with about 30 entanglements per chain. The measurements are made by modifying the filament stretching rheometer to enable the stretching of the sample in the shape of a cylindrical tube. When a constant strain rate is imposed on the sample, a well-defined steady-state in the planar extensional viscosity is observed in the experiments. Our experiments show that, within the range of strain rates used, the response of the entangled polymer solution in planar extensional flow is identical to that observed in uniaxial extensional flow. Such a finding, if found to be generally valid, facilitates the comparison between simulations and experimental data, since planar flows are easier to simulate than uniaxial flows. We also compare the predictions of a toy-version of the tube model that describes the flow properties of entangled polymer solutions with the experimental results. We find that the predictions of the model are in qualitative agreement with the experimental observations within the range of strain rates used in this study.