Analysis of Elongational Viscosity of Entangled Poly (Propylene Carbonate) Melts by Primitive Chain Network Simulations

It has been established that the elongational rheology of polymers depends on their chemistry. However, the analysis of experimental data has been reported for only a few polymers. In this study, we analyzed the elongational viscosity of poly (propylene carbonate) (PPC) melts in terms of monomeric friction via primitive chain network simulations. By incorporating a small polydispersity of materials, the linear viscoelastic response was semi-quantitatively reproduced. Owing to this agreement, we determined units of time and modulus to carry out elongational simulations. The simulation with constant monomeric friction overestimated elongational viscosity, whereas it nicely captured the experimental data if friction decreased with increasing segment orientation. To see the effect of chemistry, we also conducted the simulation for a polystyrene (PS) melt, which has a similar entanglement number per chain and a polydispersity index. The results imply that PPC and PS behave similarly in terms of the reduction of friction under fast deformations.