Junction fluctuation rubber elasticity theory

Figure 5.11 Dependence of the reduced equilibrium shear modulus, Ge/wg// 7" on the molar ratio of [OH]/[NCO] groups, ah, for poly(oxypropylene)triol (Niax LG 56)-4,4 -diisocyanatodiphenylmethane system (—-) limits of the Flory-Erman junction fluctuation rubber elasticity theory. The dependence has been reconstructed from data of ref. [78]...

Ronca and Allegra (12) and Flory ( 1, 2) assume explicitly in their new rubber elasticity theory that trapped entanglements make no contribution to the equilibrium elastic modulus. It is proposed that chain entangling merely serves to suppress junction fluctuations at small deformations, thereby making the network deform affinely at small deformations. This means that the limiting value of the front factor is one for complete suppression of junction fluctuations. 

An old point of controversy in rubber elasticity theory deals with the value of the so-called front factor g = Ap which was introduced first in the phantom chain models to connect the number of elastically effective network chains per unit volume and the shear modulus by G = Ar kTv. We use the notation of Rehage who clearly distinguishes between A andp. The factor A is often called the microstructure factor. One obtains A = 1 in the case of affine networks and A = 1 — 2/f (f = functionality) in the opposite case of free-fluctuation networks. The quantity is called the memory factor and is equal to the ratio of the mean square end-to-end distance of chains in the undeformed network to the same quantity for the system with junction points removed. The concept of the memory factor permits proper allowance for changes of the modulus caused by changes of experimental conditions (e.g. temperature, solvent) and the reduction of the modulus to a reference state However, in a number of cases a clear distinction between the two contributions to the front factor is not unambiguous. Contradictory results were obtained even in the classical studies. 

According to the importance of the cross-links, various models have been used to develop a microscopic theory of rubber elasticity [78-83], These models mainly differ with respect to the space accessible for the junctions to fluctuate around their average positions. Maximum spatial freedom is warranted in the so-called phantom network model [78,79,83], Here, freely intersecting chains and forces acting only on pairs of junctions are assumed. Under stress the average positions of the junctions are affinely deformed without changing the extent of the spatial fluctuations. The width of their Gaussian distribution is predicted to be... 

Classical molecular theories of rubber elasticity (7, 8) lead to an elastic equation of state which predicts the reduced stress to be constant over the entire range of uniaxial deformation. To explain this deviation between the classical theories and reality. Flory (9) and Ronca and Allegra (10) have separately proposed a new model based on the hypothesis that in a real network, the fluctuations of a junction about its mean position may may be significantly impeded by interactions with chains emanating from spatially, but not topologically, neighboring junctions. Thus, the junctions in a real network are more constrained than those in a phantom network. The elastic force is taken to be the sum of two contributions (9) ... 

Thus, this consideration shows that the thermoelasticity of the majority of the new models is considerably more complex than that of the phantom networks. However, the new models contain temperature-dependent parameters which are difficult to relate to molecular characteristics of a real rubber-elastic body. It is necessary to note that recent analysis by Gottlieb and Gaylord 63> has demonstrated that only the Gaylord tube model and the Flory constrained junction fluctuation model agree well with the experimental data on the uniaxial stress-strain response. On the other hand, their analysis has shown that all of the existing molecular theories cannot satisfactorily describe swelling behaviour with a physically reasonable set of parameters. The thermoelastic behaviour of the new models has not yet been analysed. 

The elastic modulus of a rubber according to the phantom network theory is much lower than the modulus of the same network with all junction fluctuations suppressed. If the fluctuations are partially suppressed, the calculated modulus lies between these limits. In fact, in many cases, the measured modulus is many times greater than predicted by fixed junction models (8,9). 

The theory in the Gaussian limit has been refined greatly to take into account the possible fluctuations of the junction points. In these approaches, the probability of an internal state of the system is the product of the probabilities Win) for each chain. The entropy is deduced by the Boltzmann equation, and the free energy by equation (26). The three main assumptions introduced in the treatment of elasticity of rubber-like materials are that the intermolecular interactions between chains are independent of the configurations of these chains and thus of the extent of deformation (125,126) the chains are Ganssian, freely jointed, and volumeless and the total number of configurations of an isotropic network is the product of the number of configurations of the individual chains. 

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