Abstract: | The effect of shear flow on the excluded volume properties of bead spring chains is calculated via the perturbation expansion of the mean-square end-to-end distance with respect to the excluded volume parameter z. The coefficient of the series 〈R2〉/〈R2〉0 = 1 + C1 · z ? … vanishes for large flow rates but shows a strong dependence on the shear rate in the intermediate regime. |