Excluded volume effects on the birefringence and stress of dilute polymer solutions in extensional flow

An algorithm is derived for calculating flow-induced birefringence using a bead-spring model with and without excluded volume effects. The simulation results for the bead-spring model compare well with experimental results for stress and birefringence in extensional flows of dilute solutions of polystyrene molecular weight 2 million in a filament-stretching device in both “theta” and “good” solvents (Orr and Sridhar 1999; Sridhar et al. 2000). In a “good” solvent, both stress and birefringence rise much more rapidly with strain than in a “theta” solvent, making extensional rheology a very sensitive indicator of solvent quality. Received: 7 December 1999 Accepted: 23 May 2000