Elasticity of polymer melts filled with glass microspheres

This contribution concerns with rheology of polymer composites containing glass microspheres of different sizes.Special attention is paid to the elasticity of filled polymer melts characterized by a die swell of the extrudates.The composites are prepared in a way that the interfacial area between the polymer and the filler particles is kept constant.This allows us to study the effect of the polymer-particle interactions on the viscosity and elasticity of the composite melts systematically.The findings obtained imply that whereas the viscosity of the composites is governed mainly by the behavior of polymer matrix and filler concentration, the die swell as a parameter describing elasticity is affected by the interfacial area.