Polymers structure complexity strain rate

More complex models can be formed by connecting a number of such elements in series. However, even these are only linear visco-elastic models in which the rate of straining is directly proportional to the stress. For polymers at typical structural levels of load, the stress-strain rate is often highly non-linear. A molecular interpretation of this can be found in a thermally activated rate process model involving motion of chain segments... 

When departures from the Cox-Merz rule are attributed to structure decay in the case of steady shear, the complex viscosity is usually larger than the steady viscosity (Mills and Kokini, 1984). Notwithstanding this feature, the relation between magnitudes of T a and T can be dependent on the strain amplitude used (Lopes da Silva et al., 1993). Doraiswamy et al. (1991) presented theoretical treatment for data on suspensions of synthetic polymers. They suggested that by using effective shear rates, the Cox-Merz rule can be applied to products exhibiting yield stresses. The shift factors discussed above can be used to calculate effective shear rates. 

Solids of different classes, including polymers, are characterized typically with a complex non-uniform structure on various morphological levels and the presence of different local defects. The theoretical approaches describe the deformation of solid polymers via local defects in the form of dislocations (or dislocation analogies ) and disclinations, or in terms of dislocation-disclination models even for non-crystalline polymers [271-275, 292]. In principle, this presumes the localized character and jump-like evolution of polymer deformation at various levels. Meantime, the structural heterogeneity and localized microdeformation processes revealed in solids by microscopic or diffraction methods, could not be discerned typically in the mechanical (stress-strain or creep) curves obtained by the traditional techniques. This supports the idea of deformation as a monotonic process with a smoothly varying rate. Creep process has been investigated in the numerous studies in terms of average rates (steady-state creep). For polymers, as the exclusion. 

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