Slipping fluids: a unified transient network model

Wall slip in polymer solutions and melts play an important role in fluid flow, heat transfer and mass transfer near solid boundaries. Several different physical mechanisms have been suggested for wall slip in entangled systems. We look at the wall slip phenomenon from the point of view of a transient network model, which is suitable for describing both, entangled solutions and melts. We propose a model, which brings about unification of different mechanisms for slip. We assume that the surface is of very high energy and the dynamics of chain entanglement and disentanglement at the wall is different from those in the bulk. We show that severe disentanglement in the annular wall region of one radius of gyration thickness can give rise to non-monotonic flow curve locally in that region. By proposing suitable functions for the chain dynamics so as to capture the right physics, we show that the model can predict all features of wall slip, such as flow enhancement, diameter-dependent flow curves, discontinuous increase in flow rate at a critical stress, hysteresis in flow curves, the possibility of pressure oscillations in extrusion and a second critical wall shear stress at which another jump in flow rate can occur