Droplet-cluster transition in sheared polyamide 6-poly(styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene)-polypropylene ternary blends

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2010 Sep;82(3 Pt 1):031807. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.82.031807. Epub 2010 Sep 30.

Abstract

We have used a Linkam CSS 450 stage equipped with an optical microscope to study online the evolution of the morphology and structure of polyamide 6 (PA6)-poly(styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene) (SEBS)-polypropylene (PP) ternary blends under shear flow. At a high shear rate (60 s(-1)), large drops of PA6 and SEBS broke up to form small randomly distributed PA6 droplets covered by SEBS in the PP matrix. These droplets aggregated into a well-ordered structure, i.e., parallel clusters, after decreasing the shear rate abruptly to within the range of 1.5-3.5 s(-1). Interestingly, these parallel clusters were aligned perpendicular to the direction of shear flow. An important feature of these parallel clusters is that they can be maintained for a long period of time (several tens of minutes) at the given shear rate or after cessation of flow; this feature allows us to freeze the structure by decreasing the temperature.