Viscous material Dashpot

Viscoelasticity illustrates materials that exhibit both viscous and elastic characteristics. Viscous materials tike honey resist shear flow and strain linearly with time when a stress is applied. Elastic materials strain instantaneously when stretched and just as quickly return to their original state once the stress is removed. Viscoelastic materials have elements of both of these properties and, as such, exhibit time-dependent strain. Viscoelasticity is the result of the diffusion of atoms or molecules inside an amorphous material. Rubber is highly elastic, but yet a viscous material. This property can be defined by the term viscoelasticity. Viscoelasticity is a combination of two separate mechanisms occurring at the same time in mbber. A spring represents the elastic portion, and a dashpot represents the viscous component (Figure 28.7). 

The Standard Linear Solid Model combines the Maxwell Model and a like Hook spring in parallel. A viscous material is modeled as a spring and a dashpot in series with each other, both of which other, both of which are in parallel with a lone spring. For this model, the governing constitutive relation is ... 

Fig. 10 Dashpot as the mechanical model of an ideal viscous material the dashpot flows to similar extent but in a different time span depending on the force applied.

In a Voigt (or Kelvin) element tlie spring and dashpot are parallel. If a stress is suddenly applied the spring cannot respond immediately because of the resistance caused by the viscous flow (delayed elasticity). Monolayers with a two-dimensional network and viscous material between the cross-links will display such behaviour. So, the increase of the strain is retarded. Eventually the maximum strain / K° is attained, see fig. 3.52a. After cessation of the strain the energy stored in the spring relaxes, again with a rate determined by the parallel viscosity, till AA— 0. Behaviour like this is semi-solid. In the limit of r] - 0 the block diagram of fig. 3.49b is retrieved. 

For an elastic solid, stress linear function of the applied strain e, and there is no strain-rate dependence. Elastic modulus E is the slope of the stress versus strain curve. An elastic material can be modeled as a spring, whereas viscous materials can be modeled as a dashpot. For a fluid (viscous material), stress is proportional to strain rate (de/dt) and unrelated to strain. Viscosity 17 is the slt of the stress versus strain rate curve. Figure 11.9 shows the stress/siiain relationship for elastic solids and the stress/strain-rate relationships for viscous liquids. 

The Maxwell Model. In the above development, discussion moves from elastic behavior to viscoelastic descriptions of material behavior. In a simple sense, viscoelasticity is the behavior exhibited by a material that has both viscous and elastic elements in its response to a deformation or load. In early days, this was often represented by elastic or viscous mechanical elements combined in different ways (9-12). The simplest models are two element models that contain a viscous element (dashpot) and an elastic element (spring). The dashpot is assumed to follow a Newtonian fluid constitutive law in which the stress is related directly to the strain rate by the following expression ... 

This model was proposed in the 19th century by Maxwell to explain the time-dependent mechanical behaviour of viscous materials, such as tar or pitch. It consists of a spring and dashpot in series as shown in Fig. 5.7(a). Under the action of an overall stress cr there will be an overall strain e in the system which is given by... 

Through the dashpot a viscous contribution was present in both the Maxwell and Voigt models and is essential to the entire picture of viscoelasticity. These have been the viscosities of mechanical units which produce equivalent behavior to that shown by polymers. While they help us understand and describe observed behavior, they do not give us the actual viscosity of the material itself. 

Over the years there have been many attempts to simulate the behaviour of viscoelastic materials. This has been aimed at (i) facilitating analysis of the behaviour of plastic products, (ii) assisting with extrapolation and interpolation of experimental data and (iii) reducing the need for extensive, time-consuming creep tests. The most successful of the mathematical models have been based on spring and dashpot elements to represent, respectively, the elastic and viscous responses of plastic materials. Although there are no discrete molecular structures which behave like the individual elements of the models, nevertheless... 

When a load is applied to the system, shown diagrammatically, the spring will deform to a certain degree. The dashpot will first remain stationary under the applied load, but if the same load continues to be applied, the viscous fluid in the dashpot will slowly leak past the piston, causing the dashpot to move. Its movement corresponds to the strain or deformation of the plastic material. 

A real material whose behaviour can be modelled in this way initially undergoes irreversible deformation as the stress is applied. This eventually ceases, and the material then behaves effectively as an elastic solid. Release of the stress will cause a rapid return to a less strained state, corresponding to the spring component of the response, but part of the deformation, arising due to viscous flow in the dashpot will not disappear. 

For a viscoelastic solid, the loss modulus which reflects the viscous processes in the material is unaffected by the presence of a spring without a dashpot. The storage modulus includes the elastic component G(0) ... 

The static tests considered in Chapter 8 treat the rubber as being essentially an elastic, or rather high elastic, material whereas it is in fact viscoelastic and, hence, its response to dynamic stressing is a combination of an elastic response and a viscous response and energy is lost in each cycle. This behaviour can be conveniently envisaged by a simple empirical model of a spring and dashpot in parallel (Voigt-Kelvin model). 

With the above information, it becomes possible to combine viscous characteristics with elastic characteristics to describe the viscoelasticity of polymeric materials.86-90 The two simplest ways of combining these features are shown in Figure 2.49, where a spring having a modulus G models the elastic response. The viscous response is modelled by what is called a dashpot. It consists of a piston moving in a cylinder containing a viscous fluid of viscosity r. If a downward force is applied to the cylinder, more fluid flows into it, whereas an upward force causes some of the fluid to flow out. The flow is retarded because of the high viscosity and this element thus models the retarded movement and flow of polymer chains. 

The model represents a liquid (able to have irreversible deformations) with some additional reversible (elastic) deformations. If put under a constant strain, the stresses gradually relax. When a material is put under a constant stress, the strain has two components as per the Maxwell Model. First, an elastic component occurs instantaneously, corresponding to the spring, and relaxes immediately upon release of the stress. The second is a viscous component that grows with time as long as the stress is applied. The Maxwell model predicts that stress decays exponentially with time, which is accurate for most polymers. It is important to note limitations of such a model, as it is unable to predict creep in materials based on a simple dashpot and spring connected in series. The Maxwell model for creep or constant-stress conditions postulates that strain will increase linearly with time. However, polymers for the most part show the strain rate to be decreasing with time [23-26],... 

Another approach that has physical merit is to model the behavior of viscoelastic materials as a series of springs (elastic elements) and dashpots (viscous elements) either in series or parallel (see Figure 8.1). If the spring and dashpot are in series, which is described as a Maxwell mechanical element, the stress in the element is constant and independent of the time and the strain increases with time. 

The Maxwell element (elastic deformation plus flow), represented by a spring and a dashpot in series. It symbolises a material that can respond elastically to stress, but can also undergo viscous flow. The two contributions to the strain are additive in this model, whereas the stresses are equal ... 

Tanaka et al. (1971) have used a two-element mechanical model (Figure 8-32) to represent fats as viscoplastic materials. The model consists of a dashpot representing the viscous element in parallel with a friction element that represents the yield value. 

The mechanical response of viscoelastic materials to mechanical excitation has traditionally been modeled in terms of elastic and viscous components such as springs and dashpots (1-3). The corresponding theory is analogous to the electric circuit theory, which is extensively described in engineering textbooks. In many respects the use of mechanical models plays a didactic role in interpreting the viscoelasticity of materials in the simplest cases. However, it must be emphasized that the representation of the viscoelastic behavior in terms of springs and dashpots does not imply that these elements reflect the molecular mechanisms causing the actual relaxation... 

As is well known, springs and dashpots represent, respectively, ideal elastic and viscous responses to step stress perturbations. In a similar way, a combination of the two can be used to describe the viscoelastic behavior of materials. The Maxwell model, a spring in series with a dashpot, is the more immediate idealization of this behavior (Fig. 10.1). 

Finally, the material will flow as if it were a Newtonian body (C-D in Fig. 13A). Here, the ruptured links have no time to reform, and the linearity of this part of the curve indicates fully viscous behavior. In the mechanical model, this region refers to the deformation of dashpot 2 (Fig. 13B). The Newtonian compliance can be calculated from ... 

On removal of the applied stress, the material experiences creep recovery. Figure 14.5 shows the creep and the creep recovery curves of the Maxwell element. It shows that the instantaneous application of a constant stress, Oo, is initially followed by an instantaneous deformation due to the response of the spring by an amount Oq/E. With the sustained application of this stress, the dashpot flows to relieve the stress. The dashpot deforms linearly with time as long as the stress is maintained. On the removal of the applied stress, the spring contracts instantaneously by an amount equal to its extension. However, the deformation due to the viscous flow of the dashpot is retained as permanent set. Thus the Maxwell element predicts that in a creep/creep recovery experiment, the response includes elastic strain and strain recovery, creep and permanent set. While the predicted response is indeed observed in real materials, the demarcations are nevertheless not as sharp. 

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