SYNOPSISTwo LLDPE resins were used in this work to determine the critical conditions for the occurrence of wall slip and melt fracture in capillary extrusion. It was found that the polymer-metal interface fails at a critical value of the wall shear stress of about 0.1 MPa and, as a result, slip occurs. At values of wall shear stress of about 0.18 MPa the extrudate surface appears to be matte, while small amplitude periodic distortions (sharkskin) appear on the surface of extrudates a t wall shear stresses above 0.25 MPa. Using a special slit die, the polymer-wall interface was coated with T e f l o n a in order to examine the effect of this coating on the processability of polyethylenes. It was found that use of T e f l o n a promotes slip, thus reducing the power requirement in extrusion and, most importantly, eliminates sharkskin at high extrusion rates. 0 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.