Double Reptation <i>vs.</i> Simple Reptation in Polymer Melts

Abstract

For polymer melts, the concept of "simple reptation" (or tube model) has been used by Doi and Edwards to calculate the stress relaxation function, but discrepancies have been found between the theoretical prediction and experimental data. By using ideas put forward by Rubinstein and Colby, it is shown here that the situation can be greatly improved by using the concept of "double reptation". This improvement is obtained without introducing additional parameters.