Dynamical phenomena in multicomponent polymers

This research concerns with different aspects of dynamical phenomena in the context of multicomponent polymeric systems. The polymer melts under investigation include polymer blends of varying compositions of two homopolymers (A and B), polymer emulsions of homopolymers blended with block copolymers (AB) and pure block copolymer systems. A novel computation algorithm termed the Self-Consistent Brownian Dynamics (SCBD) was developed and employed to explore the flow effects encountered in the aforementioned polymeric systems. Our contributions in polymer blend systems include, quantification of the slip phenomena at the interface of phase separated symmetric and asymmetric blends. We have also quantified the slip suppression phenomena by the addition of copolymer compatibilizers to the polymer blend interfaces. We have also used the SCBD approach to study the effect of copolymer characteristics on the dynamics of an isolated polymer droplet embedded in a matrix of another polymer. In the case of ternary polymer blend systems, we have studied the flow-induced phase transitions in the microemulsion phases. We provide molecular viewpoint suggesting that the interplay between polymer chain conformations and their flow deformations can lead to novel flow effects upon the phase, structure and rheological behavior of ternary blend systems. In the case of pure copolymer systems, we have studied the effect of oscillatory shear on the lamellar orientation of phase separated multiblock copolymers.