The local dynamics in polymer melts and the impact of external shear in a Couette geometry have been investigated using rheological nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The spin-spin relaxation time, T₂, which is sensitive to chain-segment motion, has been measured as a function of shear rate for two samples of poly(dimethylsiloxane). For the low-molecular-weight sample, a mono-exponential decay is observed, which becomes slightly faster with shear, indicating restrictions of the polymer chain motion. For the high-weight sample, a much faster bi-exponential decay is observed, indicative of entanglements. Both components in this decay become longer with shear. This implies that the free polymer segments between entanglements become effectively longer as a result of shear.
Keywords: entanglements; polymer mobility; rheo NMR.