Journal of Rheology, Vol.53, No.2, 401-415, 2009
Elongational dynamics of multiarm polystyrene
The startup of uni-axial elongational flow followed by stress relaxation and reversed bi-axial flow has been measured for a branched polystyrene melt with narrow molar mass distribution using the filament stretching rheometer. The branched polystyrene melt was a multiarm A(q)-C-C-A(q) pom-pom polystyrene with an estimated average number of arms of q=2.5. The molar mass of each arm is about 28 kg/mole with an overall molar mass of M-w=280 kg/mole. An integral molecular stress function constitutive formulation within the "interchain pressure" concept agrees reasonably well with the experiments.