No Arabic abstract
A necessary condition for the validity of the linear viscoelastic model for a (passive) polymeric cylinder with an ultrasonic hysteresis-type absorption submerged in a non-viscous fluid requires that the absorption efficiency is positive (Qabs > 0) satisfying the law of the conservation of energy. This condition imposes restrictions on the values attributed to the normalized absorption coefficients for the compressional and shear-wave wavenumbers for each partial-wave mode n. The forbidden values produce negative axial radiation force, absorption and extinction efficiencies, as well as an enhancement of the scattering efficiency, not in agreement with the conservation of energy law. Numerical results for the radiation force, extinction, absorption and scattering efficiencies are performed for three viscoelastic (VE) polymer cylinders immersed in a non-viscous host liquid (i.e. water) with particular emphasis on the shear-wave absorption coefficient of the cylinder, the dimensionless size parameter and the partial-wave mode number n. Mathematical constraints are established for the non-dimensional absorption coefficients of the longitudinal and shear waves for a cylinder (i.e. 2D case) and a sphere (i.e. 3D case) in terms of the sound velocities in the VE material. The analysis suggests that the domain of validity for any viscoelastic model describing acoustic attenuation inside a lossy cylinder (or sphere) in a non-viscous fluid must be verified based upon the optical theorem.
We present evidence that the concurrent existence of two populations of particles with different effective diameters is not a prerequisite for the occurrence of anomalous phase behaviors in systems of particles interacting through spherically-symmetric unbounded potentials. Our results show that an extremely weak softening of the interparticle repulsion, yielding a single nearest-neighbor separation, is able to originate a wide spectrum of unconventional features including reentrant melting, solid polymorphism, as well as thermodynamic, dynamic, and structural anomalies. These findings extend the possibility of anomalous phase behavior to a class of systems much broader than currently assumed.
The absorption of free linear chains in a polymer brush was studied with respect to chain size $L$ and compatibility $chi$ with the brush by means of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and Density Functional Theory (DFT) / Self-Consistent Field Theory (SCFT) at both moderate, $sigma_g = 0.25$, and high, $sigma_g = 1.00$, grafting densities using a bead-spring model. Different concentrations of the free chains $0.0625 le phi_o le 0.375$ are examined. Contrary to the case of $chi = 0$ when all species are almost completely ejected by the polymer brush irrespective of their length $L$, for $chi < 0$ we find that the degree of absorption (absorbed amount) $Gamma(L)$ undergoes a sharp crossover from weak to strong ($approx 100%$) absorption, discriminating between oligomers, $1le Lle 8$, and longer chains. For a moderately dense brush, $sigma_g = 0.25$, the longer species, $L > 8$, populate predominantly the deep inner part of the brush whereas in a dense brush $sigma_g = 1.00$ they penetrate into the fluffy tail of the dense brush only. Gyration radius $R_g$ and end-to-end distance $R_e$ of absorbed chains thereby scale with length $L$ as free polymers in the bulk. Using both MC and DFT/SCFT methods for brushes of different chain length $32 le N le 256$, we demonstrate the existence of unique {em critical} value of compatibility $chi = chi^{c}<0$. For $chi^{c}(phi_o)$ the energy of free chains attains the {em same} value, irrespective of length $L$ whereas the entropy of free chain displays a pronounced minimum. At $chi^{c}$ all density profiles of absorbing chains with different $L$ intersect at the same distance from the grafting plane. The penetration/expulsion kinetics of free chains into the polymer brush after an instantaneous change in their compatibility $chi$ displays a rather rich behavior. We find three distinct regimes of penetration kinetics of free chains regarding the length $L$: I ($1le Lle 8$), II ($8 le L le N$), and III ($L > N$), in which the time of absorption $tau$ grows with $L$ at a different rate. During the initial stages of penetration into the brush one observes a power-law increase of $Gamma propto t^alpha$ with power $alpha propto -ln phi_o$ whereby penetration of the free chains into the brush gets {em slower} as their concentration rises.
As is well known, the extrusion rate of polymers from a cylindrical tube or slit (a ``die) is in practice limited by the appearance of ``melt fracture instabilities which give rise to unwanted distortions or even fracture of the extrudate. We present the results of a weakly nonlinear analysis which gives evidence for an intrinsic generic route to melt fracture via a weakly nonlinear subcritical instability of viscoelastic Poiseuille flow. This instability and the onset of associated melt fracture phenomena appear at a fixed ratio of the elastic stresses to viscous stresses of the polymer solutionte
We perform micro-rheological experiments with a colloidal bead driven through a viscoelastic worm-like micellar fluid and observe two distinctive shear thinning regimes, each of them displaying a Newtonian-like plateau. The shear thinning behavior at larger velocities is in qualitative agreement with macroscopic rheological experiments. The second process, observed at Weissenberg numbers as small as a few percent, appears to have no analog in macro rheological findings. A simple model introduced earlier captures the observed behavior, and implies that the two shear thinning processes correspond to two different length scales in the fluid. This model also reproduces oscillations which have been observed in this system previously. While the system under macro-shear seems to be near equilibrium for shear rates in the regime of the intermediate Newtonian-like plateau, the one under micro-shear is thus still far from it. The analysis suggests the existence of a length scale of a few micrometres, the nature of which remains elusive.
We analyse the dynamics of polymer translocation in the strong force regime by recasting the problem into solving a differential equation with a moving absorbing boundary. For the total translocation time, $tau_{rm tr}$, our simple mean-field model predicts that $tau_{rm tr}sim$ (number of monomers)$^{1.5}$, which is in agreement with the exponent found in previous simulation results. Our model also predicts intricate dependencies of $tau_{rm tr}$ on the variations of the pulling force and of the temperature.