Rheological properties and melt strength of LDPE during coextrusion process

Rheological properties and mechanical strength of coextruded low-density polyethyelene (LDPE) were studied in this work. The influences of die temperature, shear rate at skin and core layers, and number of extrusion passes at the core layer were of interest. The experimental results suggested that the viscosity and swelling behavior of LDPE coextrudate were more dependent on the shear rate of skin layer as compared with that of core layer. Increasing die temperature resulted in decreases in viscosity and die swell ratio. The reductions in viscosity and die swell ratio of the coextrudate for the reprocessing numbers 1 and 2 at the core layer arose from the disentanglement of long chain branching of LDPE molecules, while the increase of viscosity and die swell ratio for the reprocessing numbers 3 and 4 mainly involved an occurrence of crosslinking structure. For mechanical strength results, the changes in elongational stress for different shear rates, die temperature, and number of extrusion passes were in line well with the rheological measurements. That was, the higher the stored energies in polymer melts due to higher shear rates, the greater the amount of force required to conquer the elastic resistance. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012