Paper Number
SM48 

Session
Polymers Solutions, Melts and Blends

Title
Confinement and complex viscosity

Presentation Date and Time
October 13, 2022 (Thursday) 9:25

Track / Room
Track 6 / Sheraton 3

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Coombs, Steacy J. (Queen's University, Chemical Engineering)
2. Giacomin, Alan Jeffrey (Queen's University)
3. Pasquino, Rossana (DICMaPI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Steacy J. Coombs¹, Alan Jeffrey Giacomin¹ and Rossana Pasquino^2
1Chemical Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada; ²DICMaPI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy

Speaker / Presenter 
Coombs, Steacy J.

Keywords
theoretical methods; polymer solutions

Text of Abstract
Whereas much is known about the complex viscosity of polymeric liquids, far less is understood about the behavior of this material function when macromolecules are confined. By confined, we mean that the gap along the velocity gradient is small enough to reorient the polymers. We examine classical analytical solutions [O. O. Park and G. G. Fuller, “Dynamics of rigid and flexible polymer chains in confined geometries. II. Time-dependent shear flow,” J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech. 18, 111–122 (1985)] for a confined rigid dumbbell suspension in small-amplitude oscillatory shear flow. We test these analytical solutions against the measured effects of confinement on both parts of the complex viscosity of a carbopol suspension and three polystyrene solutions. From these comparisons, we find that both parts of the complex viscosity decrease with confinement and that macromolecular orientation explains this. We find the persistence length of macromolecular confinement, Lp, to be independent of both the Deborah number and Weissenberg number.