Polymeric Liquids & Networks: Dynamics and Rheology is the second part of a two-volume treatise serving as a status report on a broad area of polymer science research. It represents an effort to unify and consolidate the work of many polymer researchers from all over the world, over the past 60-70 years. Both books are based on the graduate courses taught by the author at Princeton and Northwestern. The increasing need to apply new understandings about liquid structure to rheological behavior squeezed equilibrium aspects out of the rheology course and into another graduate course, which eventually became the basis for Volume 1, Structure and Properties, published in 2004. Volume 2 follows the original plan by building upon Volume 1—covering continuum background along with experimental observations, then molecular theories and applications to such topics as solution properties, long-chain branching and structural heterodispersity.
Dynamics and Rheology aims to leave readers with a solid grounding in the principles that underlie the dynamics and rheological behavior of flexible chain polymer liquids and networks. Readers will develop an informed intuitive understanding of the connections between polymeric structure and rheological response. Theory, experiment, and simulation are woven together so as to leave the reader with a balanced grasp of the various areas, including exposure to important unsolved puzzles. The book will be a great resource for a range of academic researchers in chemistry, physics, materials science, and chemical engineering.