posted on 2021-04-29, 08:41authored byFelipe
L. Paiva, Argimiro R. Secchi, Verônica Calado, João Maia, Shaghayegh Khani
To
blend and process different high molar mass polymers into multiphase
materials, predicting/controlling their morphology and rheological
behavior is paramount. Herein, a segmental repulsive potential within
the dissipative particle dynamics framework is applied between the
polymer bonds in a multiphase scenario to mimic entanglements and
address shear flow and relaxation behaviors of blends presenting reptational
polymer chain diffusion. More realistic and viscoelastic polymer rheological
behavior is recovered and morphological changes upon relaxation can
be traced to the relaxation of normal stress. This structure–property
relationship applies to both the flow-induced blend microstructure
that becomes kinetically trapped by Janus/homogeneous nanorods and
blends without any stabilizing agents. By computationally bridging
the interfacial microstructure with the rheological behavior of long
polymer chains, very sophisticated multiphase nanomaterials could
be designed cost-effectively in the future from a mesoscale perspective.