Dynamics and rheology of immiscible polymer-liquid-crystal systems

The morphology evolution in immiscible polymer-liquid-crystal systems is quite different from flexible polymer-polymer mixtures due to the anisotropic properties of liquid crystals. The dynamics and rheology of such system are discussed. A theoretical model is proposed to describe the dynamics of liquid-crystal droplets in a flow field and the rheological properties of immiscible liquid-crystal/polymer mixtures. The deformation of liquid-crystal droplet is found to be greatly dependent on the interfacial properties of polymer-liquid crystal. The scaling relationships of interfacial contribution to the stresses are found to be quite different from the isotropic mixtures with droplet morphology.