Microstructure characterization of polyethylene using thermo-rheological methods

In the present work, we use the viscoelastic moduli of a large number of industrially available polyethylenes in order to evaluate/test some of the previously proposed correlations between levels of long chain branching and polydispersity with the rheological properties. These correlations together with some new ones can be used to correct for the effects of polydispersity or long chain branching in order to assess the effect of these two molecular features on the rheological properties independently. The effects of short and long chain branching are studied providing a methodology to detect rheologically levels of short and long chain branching.