Assessment of the Doi–Ohta theory for co-continuous blends under oscillatory flow

Abstract

The coarsening process in co-continuous polymer blends under oscillatory flow was studied both experimentally and theoretically. The experimental values of the storage modulus decrease in time and show a particular strain dependence. Comparison with the predictions of the Doi-Ohta theory shows that, for low strain amplitudes, the coarsening of the structure is not affected by the oscillatory flow. However, large amplitude oscillations hindered and even stopped domain growth. The Doi-Ohta theory described qualitatively as well as quantitatively the experimentally obtained rheological response of a coarsening co-continuous blend under oscillatory flow.