Effect of Equilibration on Primitive Path Analyses of Entangled Polymers
arXiv:cond-mat/0507063 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.72.061802
Abstract
We use recently developed primitive path analysis (PPA) methods to study the effect of equilibration on entanglement density in model polymeric systems. Values of N_e for two commonly used equilibration methods differ by a factor of two or three even though the methods produce similar large-scale chain statistics. We find that local chain stretching in poorly equilibrated samples increases entanglement density. The evolution of N_e with time shows that many entanglements are lost through fast processes such as chain retraction as the local stretching relaxes. Quenching a melt state into a glass has little effect on N_e. Equilibration-dependent differences in short-scale structure affect the craze extension ratio much less than expected from the differences in PPA values of N_e.
arXiv comment7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E. Discussion of equilibration mechanisms for N_e improved with new data and analysis
References in corpus (4)
Cited by in corpus (9)
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