John M. Dealy, Daniel J. Read, Ronald G. Larson, Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, Germany, 2nd ed., 2018, 610 p., hardcover (incl. ebook), EUR 250.00, ISBN 978-1-56990-611-8
Recent advances in polymer science have made it possible to relate quantitatively molecular structure to rheological behaviour. At the same time, new methods of synthesis and characterisation allow the preparation and structural verification of samples having a range of branched polymeric structures. This book unites this knowledge to enable production of polymers with prescribed processability and end-product properties.
Methods of polymer synthesis and characterisation are described, starting from fundamentals. The foundations of linear viscoelasticity are introduced, and then the linear behaviour of entangled polymers is described in detail. This is followed by a discussion of the molecular modelling of linear behaviour. Tube models for both linear and branched polymers are presented. Two chapters deal with nonlinear rheological behaviour and tube models to describe nonlinearity. In this second edition, each chapter has been significantly updated to include recent advances in experimental methods and theoretical modelling.