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Oral Qualifying Exam on Macromolecular Liquids

This exam covers the basic physical aspects of synthetic polymers in the fluid phase and closely related topics. Both equilibrium and time-dependent phenomena are covered.

NON-EXHAUSTIVE TOPICAL AREAS

• Elementary physical aspects of the equilibrium and dynamic behavior of synthetic polymer solutions, melts and mixtures
• Statistical chain conformation of individual polymer chains; solvent quality; equilibrium and time-dependent behavior of dilute solutions
• Conformation, equilibrium properties and phase behavior of semidilute and concentrated polymer solutions; physical mesh, scaling concepts
• Structure and dynamics(linear viscoelasticity) of dense polymer melts (unentangled and entangled); role of polymer architecture
• Polymer networks and classical rubber elasticity
• Structure of polymers near surfaces: confined fluids, grafted and adsorbed layers
• Phase behavior of liquid crystal forming polymers; rigid rods, semiflexible chains, thermotropic and lyotropic
• Phase separation of polymer blends; interfacial aspects
• Block copolymers and microphase separation; ordered phase morphologies

LEVEL (based on UIUC courses)

MSE450: Introduction to Polymer Science and Engineering (elementary aspects)
MSE458: Polymer Physical Chemistry (equilibrium aspects)
MSE598: Dynamics of Complex Liquids (polymer aspects only)

STANDARD TEXTS

• Sperling, "Introduction to Physical Polymer Science"
• Hiemenz, " Polymer Chemistry : The Basic Concepts"
• DeGennes, "Scaling Concepts in Polymer Physics"
• Doi and Edwards, "The Theory of Polymer Dynamics"
• Larson, "The Structure and Rheology of Complex Fluids"