Abstract
Capillary rheometry of carbon-black-filled butadiene—acrylonitrile copolymers at 125°C was performed over a wide shear rate range. The data were corrected for pressure loss in the barrel and at the capillary entrance, and for the non-Newtonian velocity profile (Rabinowitsch correction). No appreciable effect of pressure on viscosity was observed. The die swell values were very small, 1.1–1.4. This fact and the shape of the plots of shear stress vs. shear rate imply the presence of a particulate structure, which is probably built by carbon black surrounded with bound rubber. Unlike the behavior of raw amorphous elastomers, the steady-shear viscosity, the dynamic complex viscosity, and the viscosity calculated from tensile stress-strain behavior were significantly different from each other. That is, the capillary flow data indicated an alteration of the structure towards strain softening, and the tensile stress-strain behavior showed strain hardening, indicating retention of the structure up to the yield point. In the dynamic measurement, being conducted at very small strain, the structure is least disturbed. With unfilled elastomers essentially the same deformational mechanism was believed to be responsible in these three measurements, because the results can be expressed by a single master curve.
