Jl. Harden et Me. Cates, EXTENSION AND COMPRESSION OF GRAFTED POLYMER LAYERS IN STRONG NORMAL FLOWS, Journal de physique. II, 5(7), 1995, pp. 1093-1103
We study the deformation of polymer brushes grafted to porous substrat
es in strong permeation flows normal to the grafting surface. Our mode
l predicts a strong deformation regime for both compressive and extens
ive permeation flows of sufficiently high solvent how rates. These reg
imes are characterized by non-linear scaling of brush thickness L with
molecular weight N and solvent velocity V and by non-linear scaling o
f solvent velocity V with the pressure drop Delta P across the brush.
For the case of strong brush extension, L similar to (NV2)-V-3, as in
the case of isolated chains in uniform solvent flows, and V similar to
Delta P-1/3; while for strong brush compression, L similar to (NV-4/1
3)-V-9/13 and V similar to Delta P-13/15.