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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Entangled polymers have been thoroughly studied since the 1940s at least....or so we thought. In the last decade particle velocimetry and other imaging methods, combined with rheology, have shown that some dramatic instabilities can occur in strongly sheared well-entangled polymer melts. I will discuss how some of these new observations (such as various shear banding phenomena and `fracture') can be understood in terms of the 'Standard Model' for entangled polymers, and highlight some of the current controversies in the area.
