Modelling Polymers as Compressible Elastic Spheres in Couette Flow

A model of polymer chains as compressible elastic spheres in flow is presented.The spherical polymer blobs are assumed to compress in simple Couette flow in accord with recent rheo-optic Pants measurements on semi-dilute solutions.The experimentally determined decrease in radius with increasing shear rate is predicted by Blood Pressure - Cuff and Stethoscope Sets the model.Furthermore, the model predicts power law exponents for the viscosity-shear rate within the range of measured values for polymer chains.