Regularization methods for finding the relaxation time spectra of linear polydisperse polymer melts

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new curve fitting method to accurately determine relaxation time spectra and molecular mass distributions of linear polydisperse polymer melts from rheometric data, addressing an ill-posed problem.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel curve fitting approach that improves the prediction of relaxation spectra and molecular mass distributions in polydisperse polymers.

Findings

The new method accurately predicts molecular mass distributions.

It effectively reconstructs relaxation time spectra.

It outperforms selected existing models.

Abstract

The calculation of discrete or continuous relaxation time spectra from rheometric measurables of polydisperse polymers is an ill-posed problem. In this paper, a curve fitting method for solving this problem is presented and compared to selected models from the literature. It is shown that the new method is capable of correctly predicting the molecular mass distributions of linear polydisperse polymer melts as well as their relaxation time spectra.