Induced Orientational Effects in Relaxation of Polymer Melts

Abstract

We study stress relaxation in bi-disperse entangled polymer solutions. Shorter chains embedded in a majority of longer ones are known to be oriented by coupling to them. We analyze the mechanism for this both by computer simulation and theoretically. We show that the results can be understood in terms of stress fluctuations in a polymer melt and chain screening. Stress fluctuations are frozen on the relaxation time of the longer chains, and these will induce strong orientational couplings in the shorter chains.