2016 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Unified View of Entanglements in Polymer Liquids
| Project/Area Number |
26800221
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| Research Institution | Yamagata University |
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Principal Investigator |
SUKUMARAN S.K. 山形大学, 大学院有機材料システム研究科, 准教授 (70598177)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | Entanglements / Polymer Blends / Polymer Melts / Polymer Solutions / Polymer Dynamics |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
We investigated blends of stiff and flexible chains at different blending ratios. Two different chain stiffness value combinations were used.
As previously reported, topological analysis by length minimization indicated that that the tube diameters of both the stiff and the flexible chains calculated from the primitive path configurations were almost equal to each other. Although this has been hypothesised before, this is the first direct observation, albeit only in simulations. In order to confirm that the observed result is not an artifact of the method used, we used the original primitive path analysis, which uses energy minimization. Qualitatively, we found that the composition dependence of the tube diameters from the primitive path analysis to be similar to that from the length minimization. Also, we verified, but only approximately the finding of identical tube diameters mentioned earlier.
By extending theoretical ansatz for homopolymer melts to binary blends, we were able to shed some light on the physics behind the tube diameter dependence obtained from the simulations.
As noted last year, strong discrepancy exists between simulations and experimental data. This also implies that the extensions of the theoretical ansatz mentioned above cannot explain the behaviour of the binary blends. Over the last year, we have come up with some ideas to explain the origin of the discrepancy and have tested them in preliminary simulations. We are currently further pursuing these ideas.
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