Unraveling Dynamics of Entangled Polymers in Strong Extensional Flows

The traditional Doi–Edwards tube model, applied to extensional flows at strain rates above the inverse Rouse time, predicts that the tube deforms affinely, which implies that the extensional stress reaches its plateau as soon as the chain has become locally fully stretched, even if the chain is still folded, and far from being completely unraveled. By starting from a state in which the chain is in a locally fully stretched, but folded, state, we...