The fluid form of the polymers while they are being processed is remarkable scientifically and industrially important.  The underlying physics shows a large degree of universality, connecting fundamental questions of polymer dynamics to industrial materials design.  A global partnership of physicists, mathematicians, chemists and engineers is now beginning to unravel the tangled tale of polymer melts.Polymer physicists examine very well-controlled �molecular architectures� of polymers.  Alongside the experiments, a powerful theoretical idea is employed by the theoreticians: each chain moves as if it were confined to a tube.  The tubes allow only snaking motions of the chains they contain along their lengths.  Mathematical versions of these pictures give predictions for the elastic memory of star polymers in astonishing agreement with experiment.  Generalising to more complex architectures makes surprising predictions in non-linear response.  Very recently this programme has been combined with numerical models of industrial polymerisation kinetics to yield predictive strain-hardening process rheology for LDPE and metallocene LCB resins[1].The polymer physics connecting branching structure to rheology also opens up a range of analytical tools supplying �windows� onto these structures, when interpreted in the light of modelling tools.  An open-source programme, the 'Branch-on-Branch' (BoB) algorithm, is available to all users and has been employed as an in silico guide for resin development by industry, in particular for the specific design of tailored strain-hardening.[1] D.J. Read, D. Auhl, C. Das, J. Den Doelder, M. Kapnistos, I. Vittorias and T.C.B. McLeish . �From Reaction to Rheology: Linked Molecular Models of Polymerisation Kinetics and Entangled Dynamics Predict Branched Polymer Structure and Flow�, Science, 333 , 1871-1874(2011).

Structural rheology of long chain branched polymers: Measuring and modeling macromolecules in flow

248th National Meeting (2014)

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