Birefringence measurements in extensional flow of polyisobutylene around an expanding bubble

Birefringence in liquid polymers offers the possibility of obtaining information about stress in complex flows. In this work, this is done for extensional flows of polyisobutylene in a “breathing bubble” rheometer. In this type of rheometer, a bubble consisting of an incompressible, low-viscosity fluid (usually water) is injected into the sample with a nozzle. Expanding or collapsing the bubble by adding or removing water induces biaxial or uniaxial extension in the surrounding sample. The pressure difference between the bubble and the surroundings can be measured and compared to the predictions of constitutive equations. This measurement only gives one integral value for a complex flow history.In this paper, the birefringence around the bubble is measured in order to learn more about the flow. This is done by comparing pressure and birefringence results to those of standard constitutive equations for a polyisobutylene sample. A good agreement between the pressure and optical measurements and the theory is found with a single value of the stress-optical constant.