Career Program: Shear-Induced Slippage at Polymer-Solid Interfaces

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9624254 Archer This career development program combines course development and mentoring with fundamental studies of shear-induced slippage of polymeric fluids in simple geometry's. The research focuses on the classic no-slip condition. Recent studies indicate this condition may not be valid at sufficiently high shear stresses for polymer melts and solutions and even for some Newtonian fluids. The research uses optical and spectroscopic methods to study spatial variations in polymer orientation in the bulk and close to confining walls. The effects of chain length and polymer strand orientation close to bounding surfaces will be studied in entangled polymer solutions. In polymer solutions and melts, the influence of inner-species mixing and stress gradients on small molecule migration and slip will be determined. Information of this type has application in polymer processing. The educational component of this program includes further development of two new courses, Polymer Engineering and Polymer Dynamics. These courses will be integrated into a new multi-disciplinary undergraduate polymer engineering program. This is part of a strategy to make the chemical engineering program more responsive to changing industrial needs. A special feature of the educational plan is a mentoring program whereby talented undergraduates are exposed to industrial research problems. Specific plans are included for training promising underrepresented minority students in basic research methodology. This plan includes efforts to improve graduation rates and post graduate enrollment rates for this group of students.