Title: Polymer Network Mobility and Environmental Stress Cracking Resistance of High Density Polyethylene
Abstract: Abstract Zero shear viscosity and molecular weight between entanglements (M e ) are determined from dynamic oscillatory shear experiments. Lower M e value means higher number of entanglements in the system and is associated with increasing strain hardening stiffness. With the understanding that strain hardening is related to environmental stress cracking resistance (ESCR) of high density polyethylene (HDPE), M e is then related to the ESCR of several resins in this study. The inversely proportional relationship between M e and ESCR indicates that low network mobility due to an increasing number of chain entanglements increases the ESCR of HDPE. Keywords: Chain entanglementsEnvironmental stress cracking resistanceHigh density polyethylenePolymer network mobilityStrain hardening ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, and the Canada Research Chair (CRC) program of NSERC, for financial support. Many thanks go to Dr. Shuihan Zhu and Professor Costas Tzoganakis, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo, for considerable help with the rheology experiments. In addition, the authors are grateful to ExxonMobil Chemical Canada (Imperial Oil Canada), Nova Chemicals (Canada) Ltd., and Repsol YPF, Spain, for supplying resins.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-11-30
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 16
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