Premium
Steady‐state properties and dynamic behavior of polymer chains in dilute solution under elongational flow
Author(s) -
Cifre José Ginés Hernández,
De La Torre José García
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
macromolecular symposia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-3900
pISSN - 1022-1360
DOI - 10.1002/masy.19991460118
Subject(s) - polymer , thermodynamics , brownian dynamics , kinetics , steady state (chemistry) , chain (unit) , brownian motion , flow (mathematics) , solvent , materials science , chemistry , chemical physics , physics , mechanics , classical mechanics , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , astronomy
The behavior of polymer chains in dilute solution under a steady, homogeneous elongational flow has been studied employing Brownian dynamics simulation. We first consider the dependence of polymer properties in steady state on the elongational rate, ϵ. When this rate exceeds some critical value, ϵ c , the properties show a dramatic change from the values typical of the coil state to those of a stretched conformation. We describe the dependence of ϵ c on chain length for different polymer/solvent conditions. Following the trajectories of individual molecules, we have characterized dynamic aspects of the coil‐stretch transition. Each chain suffer the transition after some time, t trans , has elapsed after the flow start‐up. The values of t trans vary remarkably from one molecule to another, and we have characterized the statistical distribution of this quantity. We also determine the kinetics of the coil‐to‐stretch process, which seems to follow a first‐order kinetics after some induction time. The dependence of the statistical and kinetic parameters on chain length and elongational rate has been determined.