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

9624254 Archer这个职业发展计划将课程开发和指导与简单几何条件下聚合物流体剪切诱导滑移的基础研究结合在一起。研究重点放在经典的防滑条件上。最近的研究表明，对于聚合物熔体和溶液，甚至对于一些牛顿流体，这一条件在足够高的剪应力下可能不适用。这项研究使用光学和光谱方法来研究聚合物在主体和靠近围墙的位置上的空间变化。在缠绕的聚合物溶液中，将研究靠近结合面的链长和聚合物链取向的影响。在聚合物溶液和熔体中，将确定物种内混合和应力梯度对小分子迁移和滑移的影响。这类信息在聚合物加工中有应用。该计划的教育部分包括进一步开发两门新课程，聚合物工程和聚合物动力学。这些课程将被整合到一个新的多学科本科聚合物工程课程中。这是一项战略的一部分，目的是让化学工程项目更好地适应不断变化的工业需求。该教育计划的一个特色是指导计划，在该计划中，有才华的本科生可以接触到工业研究问题。其中包括了培训有前途的、代表性不足的少数民族学生基本研究方法的具体计划。该计划包括努力提高这类学生的毕业率和研究生入学率。

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.