Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/R76608/01
Title:	Quantitive theory for dynamics of entangled Polymer melts
Principal Investigator:	Likhtman, Professor A
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Applied Mathematics
Organisation:	University of Leeds
Scheme:	Advanced Fellowship (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 October 2002	Ends:	30 April 2007	Value (£):	219,213
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Materials Characterisation Materials Processing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 20 Nov 2001 Technology Fellowships Sift Panel Deferred
Summary on Grant Application Form
The detailed understanding of the structure and properties of entangled polymer melt is crucial for successful usage of polymer materials in industry. During last 30 years most of the theoretical efforts in polymer dynamics was concentrated on the attempts to improve the tube theory of de Gennes, Doi and Edwards. In the research project I propose to develop a self-consistent tube theory of entangled polymer melts and concentrated solutions. This theory should combine all known processes additional to reptation, e.g. contour length fluctuations, constraint release, longitudinal modes of the stress relaxation and avoid the crude mathematical approximations used until now. I propose to use a method which combines analytical derivations of desired equations with direct stochastic simulations of the same equations. Stochastic solutions will provide the validity regions of the approximations and allow the calculation of unknown prefactors. This method was first applied to the theory of convective constraint release and gave detailed predictions of rheological and scattering properties of the fast flows of polymer melts. In the research proposal I describe the methods of obtaining linear and nonlinear rheological properties of linear and branched polymer melts using this combined approach.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.leeds.ac.uk