AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Abstract

General rigid bead-rod theory [Hassager, J Chem Phys, 60, 4001 (1974)] explains polymer viscoelasticity from macromolecular orientation. By means of general rigid bead-rod theory, we relate the complex viscosity of polymeric liquids to the architecture of axisymmetric macromolecules. In this work, we explore the zero-shear and complex viscosities of 24 different axisymmetric polymer configurations.
When nondimensionalized with zero-shear viscosity, the complex viscosity depends on the dimensionless frequency and the sole dimensionless architectural parameter, the macromolecular lopsidedness. In this work, in this way, we compare and contrast the elastic and viscous components of the complex viscosities of macromolecular chains that are straight, branched, ringed, or star-branched. We explore the effects of branch position along a straight chain, branched-chain backbone length, branched-chain branch functionality, branch spacing along a straight chain (including pom-poms), the number of branches along a straight chain, ringed polymer perimeter, branch-functionality in planar stars, and branch dimensionality.

Speaker

Dr. Alan Jeffrey Giacomin

Professor of Chemical Engineering, Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Physics, Engineering Physics, and Astronomy at Queen's University where he holds the title of Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Rheology. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in Chemical Engineering from Queen's University in Kingston, before joining the Research Division at DuPont Canada. He then earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering from McGill University. He joined the Mechanical Engineering faculty at Texas A&M University. He has been a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, where for twenty years he chaired its Rheology Research Center. He has held visiting professorships at McGill University, the University of Sherbrooke, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the Paris School of Mines, the National University of Singapore, Chung Yuan University, Yunlin University, and Shandong University. He is President of the Canadian Society of Rheology and a former President of The Society of Rheology. He serves as the sole Editor-in-Chief of Physics of Fluids.