A comparison of the rheological properties of polytetrafluoroethylene below its melting point with certain low‐molecular smectic states

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) was extruded from a capillary rheometer at temperatures between the first‐order transition at 30°C and the melting point. Both PTFE at 50–300°C and various smectic states of certain low‐molecular benzylidene anilines obey the following relationship between the shear stress τ and the apparent shear rate $ \dot \gamma :{\rm }\tau = K\dot \gamma ^{{1 \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}} \right. } 4}} $ . The apparent viscosities for the two classes of substances are similar even though their molecular weights differ by a factor of about 10⁴. Both have characteristic shear planes which are parallel to the polymer chains in PTFE and normal to the long axes of the benzylidene aniline molecules. The melting process in virgin PTFE begins near 300°C. Above this temperature, the shear stress at constant shear rate increases and the rheological exponent rises from 0.25 toward 0.5 at the final melting point.