No abstract

Presence of an ultra high molecular weight (UHMw) fraction in flowing polymer melts is known to facilitate formation of oriented crystalline structures significantly. The UHMw fraction manifests itself as a minor tail in the molar mass distribution and is hardly detectable in the canonical characterization methods. In this study, alternatively, we demonstrate how the nonlinear extensional rheology reveals to be a very sensitive characterization tool for investigating the effect of the UHMw-tail on the structural ordering mechanism. Samples containing a UHMw-tail relative to samples without, exhibit a clear increase in extensional stress that is directly correlated with the crystalline orientation of the quenched samples. Extensional rheology, particularly, in combination with linear creep measurements, thus, enables the conformational evolution of the UHMw-tail to be studied and linked to the enhanced formation of oriented structures.

 Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.  You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain  You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) shows a stress overshoot in start-up of strong uniaxial extensional flows of constant rate. It is believed that the overshoot is caused by a contraction of the polymer backbone due to alignment of the long chain branchesthe consequence being that the molecular strain of the backbone does not increase monotonically with the global strain of the melt. In this study we investigate the semicrystalline morphology of LDPE quenched before, after, and at the overshoot. We do this by combining filament stretching rheometry with ex-situ X-ray scattering. It is found that the overshoot indeed is reflected in the orientation of the crystalline domains of the quenched filaments. In a broader perspective, we show that the final crystalline morphology is determined by the stress at quenchnot the strain at quench. With these findings we confirm that the much debated overshoot has a physical origin. More importantly, we conclude that even for complex architectures like branched systems, the crystalline orientation is determined by the backbone stretch rather than the global stretch of the material.

 Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.  You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain  You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.