A Brief Introduction to the Rheology of Polymeric Fluids

Polymer Rheology is a fundamental discipline underlying modern polymer processing. The term rheology could be generally defined as the science of deformation and flow for non-traditional materials that display a nonlinear combination of viscous, elastic and plastic effects, such as polymers, food stuffs, lubricating greases etc. The rheology of polymeric liquids is the most complicated part of general rheology. As any scientific discipline it consists of coupled theoretical and experimental parts. The most difficult part for the first studies of polymer rheology is the theory. This textbook attempts to overcome this difficulty and provide the readers with a balanced knowledge of modern types of continuum theories, experiments and some applications.