Sheer effect on the devolatilization of filled polymers

This is the second part of a systematic program to investigate the onset and mechanisms of devolatilization of filled polymeric materials. The object of this work is to study the effect of shear flow on the devolatilization of filled polymers. It is found that shear flow enables abrupt foam growth at relatively high absolute pressure in comparison to the cases without shear now. The shear flow also reduces the threshold pressure which distinguishes two regimes of gradual and abrupt foam. In addition, an oscillatory foam growth phenomena was observed. The foam growth and devolatilization efficiency are found to depend on the imposed shear rate.