
Polymers in strong flows: shear banding, fracture, and other strange phenomena
Date
November 18, 2014 - 10:00am
Location
Klaus 1116 East
Entangled polymers have been thoroughly studied since the 1940s at least....or so we thought. In the last decade particle velocimetry and other imaging methods, combined with rheology, have shown that some dramatic instabilities can occur in strongly sheared well-entangled polymer melts. I will discuss how some of these new observations (such as various shear banding phenomena and `fracture') can be understood in terms of the 'Standard Model' for entangled polymers, and highlight some of the current controversies in the area.