The morphology of fibrous polymeric crystals formed isothermally in stationary shear fields

Abstract

A discussion is presented of the morphology of the fibrous crystals, shish kebabs, produced in an initially simple shear flow. When the crystallizable Component of the fluid is sufficiently dilute one usually finds along the stream line at the end of the large scale fibrous crystal, a continuation of that structure which consists of an extremely fine sequence of morphological entities. This fine row structure appears to have transverse dimensions comparable to and slightly greater than the resolution power of the transmission electron microscopical methods used in its observation. Certain tentative suggestions were made regarding the nature of the shish kebab morphology. These are based upon a loose application of general results in the field of irreversible thermodynamics. This leads to the suggestion that the morphological nature of the row structure which has been generally observed in fibrous crystallizations may find its explanation in the nature of the local manner in which the associated entropy production is balanced while preserving a global state of stationary deformation with its associated lack of global entropy production.