ABSTRACT
For understanding polymer melt fracture, the signi–cant body of literature needs synthesis. The multifaceted but often partial knowledge should lead to a coherent insight on how melt fracture comes about. It should possibly provide the basis for relating the detailed polymer composition to a material function and associating this to the dynamics of stress and kinematics of strain. In the following, the ¦ow curve shall refer to the experimentally obtained (apparent wall) shear stress-shear rate data, and the shear stress-shear rate curve to the curve as captured by a constitutive equation.
