Controlled architectures and property synergisms of polypropene/polyamide 6 blends prepared via reactive processing

Variation of molecular architectures of blend compatibilizers and reactive processing reaction conditions gave excellent control on morphology development and toughness/stiffness balance of polypropene/polyamide 6 blends. Basic structure/property relationships of blends containing discrete PA6 phases, PA6 nanoparticle cores encapsulated in a rubber shell, dispersed PA6 particles with rubber subinclusions, and percolation structures of agglomerated core/shell particles were investigated. Deformation behavior of percolation structures were analyzed by means of high-voltage transmission electron microscopy.     

Synthesis and characterization of macrocyclic polystyrene block-copolymers

The synthesis of macrocyclic polystyrene- block-poly(2-vinylpyridine) and macrocyclic polystyrene- block-poly(dimethylsiloxane) was carried out by initiation of 2-vinylpyridine (2VP) and hexamethyl-cyclotrisiloxane (D3) by difunctional living polystyryllithium followed by coupling with 1,4-bis(bromethyl)benzene (1,4-DBX) and dichloro-dimethylsilane (Cl₂SiMe₂), respectively. A small portion of the living ABA precursors were protonated to serve as isobaric linear precursors. The linear and macrocyclic block copolymers were characterized by size-exclusion chromatography (SEC). The ratios of apparent cyclic/linear SEC molecular-weight maxima versus degree of polymerization (DP) show increases with decreasing DP varying from 0.70 ± 0.03 at high DP ≤ 200 to 0.78 ± 0.044 at low DP (≥60) whereas that of the linear ABA block copolymers decreased. Increases in glass transition temperature (Tg) were also observed for the cyclic PS-b-PDMS copolymers with respect to the isobaric linear precursors. The macrocycles were characterized by ¹H and ¹³C NMR and in the case of macrocyclic PS-b-PDMS by ²⁹Si NMR as well. Broadening in the NMR absorptions of the macrocyclic block copolymers is general and is similar to that observed for the homopolymers. Differemtial scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis of the PS-b-P2VP macrocycles shows increases in Tg at lower molecular weight as was observed for the PS and P2VP macrocycles.     

Wind Gusts and Small Scale Intermittency in Atmospheric Flows

We introduce a model that interprets atmospheric increment statistics as a large scale mixture of subsets of isotropic statistics. When mixing is weak the same statistics as for isotropic turbulence is recovered while for strong mixing robust intermittency is obtained. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)