ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys some of the author's recent work on unstable viscoelastic flows. To specify the nature of a fluid, it is necessary to place constitutive restrictions on the stress tensor. To make the problem of studying viscoelastic fluid motions more tractible, the chapter restricts to the study of rectilinear shearing flow. It presents some new ideas on the relationship between the theory of unstable flows and the well-known phenomenon of melt fracture in polymers. The chapter illustrates steady shearing stress versus rate of shear curve to illustrate waviness of unstable flows.
