TOPOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS IN POLYMER NETWORK STRONG COLLAPSE

The quantitative theory of strong collapse of a polymer gel based on the concept of the crumpled globule state of a nonphantom polymer chain is proposed. The theoretical explanation of the experimental results of T. Tanaka et al.5 on equilibrium gel swelling for the strong collapse regime is given. It is shown that the theory is in a good agreement with experimental data. Some applications of the concept of the crumpled globule state to the general problems concerning the equilibrium properties of nonphantom networks are also discussed briefly.