Abstract.
We show that non-entangled polymers display an elastic-like behaviour at a macroscopic scale (probed at some 0.100 mm thickness) up to at least hundred degrees above the glass transition temperature. This observation, found under non-slippage conditions, both for side-chain liquid crystalline polymers and ordinary polymers, is in contradiction with the typically found flow behaviour of polymer melt. Our measurements were carried out with a conventional rheometer at thicknesses of several tenths millimetres. Thus, we were probing bulk properties. The observed elasticity supposedly implies that even in the melt the chains experience a cohesive effect of macroscopic distances, involving collective motions over time scales longer than the individual relaxation time of an individual polymer chain. The detection of such a solid-like property of molten non-entangled polymers is of considerable importance for a better understanding of the polymer dynamics.
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D. Collin, P. Martinoty, Eur. Phys. J. E., DOI: 10.1140/epje/e2006-00005-8
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Mendil, H., Baroni, P. & Noirez, L. Solid-like rheological response of non-entangled polymers in the molten state. Eur. Phys. J. E 19, 77–85 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/e2006-00011-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/e2006-00011-x